Disjoint among agencies, probe, trial affects efforts

The lack of coordination among law enforcement agencies and sluggish pace of investigations and trials of human trafficking cases have slowed the government's initiatives to combat trafficking offences.

Besides, the delay in setting up special tribunals and the non-functional state of counter trafficking committees (CTC) in district, upazila and union levels still remains as major setbacks.

The observations came at the first day of a national conference on "National Plan of Action for Combating Human Trafficking 2015-17: From Adoption to Implementation", organised by the home ministry in the capital's Bangabandhu International Conference Centre with technical support from USAID, Winrock International and International Organization for Migration. The programme will end today with outcomes and recommendations to implement the action plan.

AKM Masud Ali, executive director of Integrated Community & Industrial Development Initiative in (Incidin) Bangladesh, said the human traffickers are continuously changing tricks to exploit people and it's urgent to take strong measures.

The government has decided to try the human traffickers under special tribunals, which are yet to be set up, Masud said. "Victims are hardly getting any remedies and protections," he said, suggesting that it is a must to increase capacities of the law enforcers and legal practitioners to deal with the issue.

Commending the government's recent initiatives including adoption of national action plan and formation of laws against trafficking, Masud said the issue of compensations for the victims is needed to be considered. 

In the beginning of this month, USAID and Winrock International held a divisional conference on CTC in Jessore where participants observed that the CTCs were not fully functional as the issues of supervision, monitoring and accountability remained absent. The participants in that conference emphasised the importance of making the CTCs effective.

"We have to find the root causes of trafficking and must work together," said Mozammel Haque Khan, senior secretary of the home ministry.

Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem, additional secretary of home ministry, chaired the inaugural session where Amber Brooks, director for Democracy and Governance at USAID Bangladesh and Abdusattor Esoev, deputy chief of International Organisation for Migration in Dhaka spoke.

The government has been implementing the national action plan which outlines specific responsibilities for the different participating agencies for combating human trafficking.