Human Trafficking from and within Bangladesh for Prostituion

Bangladesh is a source, transit and destination of human trafficking. Bangladesh has a strong law passed in 2012 to combat human trafficking incidents but it has limited application by the law enforcement agency due to various unwritten embargo. The main embargo is the severe punishment awarded for the offender once it is proved! As human trafficking is a chain of activities, it is very difficult to accuse a single or very few persons in one case. The ranges of offenses varied in each steps starting from recruitment, transportation, harbouring, grooming, exploitation and abuses. 

The human trafficking cases mostly suffer from lack of eyewitness and the authority’s concerned need to heavily depend on process documents to proceed on trial. In most of the cases from the source to rescue, there is hardly any evidence available because of the clandestine nature of the crime. In the criminal justice system, witness, evidence, presentations, solicitor’s portfolio, investment of the criminal to escape justice, ability of the victim to fight until the end all together ended up in no results. Victims get hapless and surrender to perpetrators’ muscle power for the sake of personal and family safety.

Sometimes , social sector NGOs come to support the victims by linking up them with legal processes which get ends shortly as long as the funding support close. Because external donor’s do not support NGOs to sponsor the cases for long time. As a result, traffickers get free of all types of vigilance and surveillance of the court and police procedures. 

The destination counties also hardly assist to facilitate persecution of the trafficking cases. There are many reasons behind not to take the issue seriously. Responsible people who holds positions and authority also remains less vocal on the trafficking issue. The main reason is economic. Bangladesh has a dependency on the remittance sent by the migrant workers. If there is much reporting and discussion on the human trafficking issue then there may be a negative perception on Bangladesh among the labor importing countries. That is why the officials who enjoy chair in the concerned desks until and unless severe chaos is created in the media and legal system. 

Bangladesh has separate legal framework to deal with labor migration issue, which was enacted in the year 2013 one year later of the human trafficking prevention act. Official objectives of the both laws are to defend the rights of the people and facilitate the process and procedure however in reality legal sprit are bypassed in many cases and end of the efforts are made for out of court settlements. 

Human traffickers are very well organized. They are empowered. They remain closed to power structure. They read the pulse of the victims and their strengths involving social and professional networks. If they assume, there is a need for remain away for a short period they do.  

For unknown reasons, every political government in Bangladesh remain silent on the in-country human trafficking and prostitution. Every single case study came out from brothels across Bangladesh has same characteristics.  People bring the girls and woman and sell them to brothels with false promise of job, travelling or shopping or pilgrim etc. There exploitation for flesh trade persist as long as the woman and girl. Bangladesh  shelter the brothel goers with the excuse of no evidence! Authority does not want to stop brothels and they wish to prefer maintain a concentrate zone, which is a harsh strategy Bangladesh follows like neighboring country India. 

There is a need for organized consensus to eliminate the form of formal prostitution with proper rehabilitation programs.