High Court needs to step up monitoring in human trafficking cases
An act was drawn up seven years ago in Bangladesh for special tribunal to deal with human trafficking. However, the tribunal is yet to see the light due to a shortage of judges and inadequate infrastructure. Special initiatives by the government and the High Court could have led to disposal of a greater number of human trafficking cases within the existing legal system. The National Human Rights Commission at a seminar in association with UNDP on 20 April disclosed that only 5 per cent of the human trafficking cases were disposed over the last seven years. This is really unfortunate.
It is imperative to generate more employment in the country to fight human trafficking. Skilled and semi-skilled workers resort to traffickers for jobs abroad despite knowing the uncertainty involved the process. Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said that all needed to work unitedly so that no one falls prey to the enticement of traffickers. We fully agree with him.
We understand the unbearable stress any unemployed people go through, but it does not justify their surrendering to traffickers. It is our collective responsibility to deter them from taking such suicidal decisions. At the same time, we cannot agree if the government claims that the human trafficking is decreasing due to overall development of the country. To make such claims, one must present credible statistics of how many industries were set up in the country in the last ten years and how much people were employed in those industries.
We have been elevated to the status of middle income country recently, but our development is largely based only on the readymade garments industry and supplying manpower overseas. Dependence on these two sectors is in a way hindering our chances to create new employment. These two sectors largely depend on other countries. Besides, the international labour market is steadily shrinking.
Mass graves of migrants were discovered in Thailand and Malaysia in recent years. Boats carrying migrants were sunk in the Mediterranean Sea. A handful of Bangladeshis were among those unfortunate people. Still, human trafficking continues. Human trafficking is a heinous crime. But, the state cannot deny the link between this crime and the unabated unemployment problem of the country. In last 10-15 years, Tk 4000 billion was siphoned off from the country. This indicates that the few people who amassed huge amount of money do not feel comfortable to invest inside the country.
In 2015, the agriculture minister at the time, Matia Chowdhury, said that the incidents of ‘encounter’ prove that the government has taken issue of human trafficking seriously. Some alleged human traffickers were killed in ‘gunfights’ in recent years. But that does not seem to improve the situation.
The High Court needs to be vigilant in curbing lawlessness. Although the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal has the jurisdiction of dealing with human trafficking cases, those tribunals in many instances deal with other cases. This should end. A total of 300 out of over 4000 cases in 64 districts are pending for more than five years. The High Court can order the lower court to dispose of those old cases on a priority basis.