US urges Bangladesh to increase trafficking convictions

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Bangla Tribune Desk
Published : 21:46, Sep 15, 2019 | Updated : 21:47, Sep 15, 2019

Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque speaks during a workshop titled `Comprehensive Responses to Trafficking in Persons,` held at the Hotel InterContinental Dhaka on Sunday, September 15, 2109 PHOTO/Rajib DharThe US has urged Bangladesh to increase prosecution and convictions for human trafficking offenses, with the country being ranked in the Tier 2 watch category of the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report 2019.
Describing the human trafficking situation in Bangladesh as alarming, Political and Economic counselor at the US Embassy in Bangladesh Brent Christensen said: “The report’s most critical recommendation advices Bangladesh to significantly increase prosecutions and convictions for human trafficking offenses. The focus now must be on implementation [of anti-trafficking measures].”
Christensen made the comments at a workshop titled “Comprehensive Responses to Trafficking in Persons,” held at Dhaka hotel on Sunday (Sept 15).
The workshop was organized by IOM Bangladesh, the UN Migration Network, and the Bangladesh Ministries of Foreign and Home Affairs, with the support of the US State Department.
Irregular migrants are often subjected to forced sexual exploitation, forced marriage, debt bondage, forced labor, and slavery like practices, and this can be reduced through comprehensive efforts, experts at the program said.
Bangladeshi victims are mostly smuggled to India, Pakistan and Middle Eastern countries, resulting in the most corrosive forms of human rights violations, they added.
Mia Seppo, UN resident coordinator in Bangladesh, said: “The main challenges revolve around coordination, capacity, resources and data. The State must also do more to support the victims and survivors of trafficking.”
Girogi Gigauri, chief of mission of IOM Bangladesh, said: “A lack of job opportunities, poor awareness on safe migration, and high costs of migration are some of the pull factors of irregular migration.”
Urging for more accessible regular migration to prevent trafficking, Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque said: “If you want to combat trafficking with the old model, you will fail. There is a huge gap between the trafficking prevention action and the way traffickers operate.”
He added that Bangladesh has decided to ratify the Palermo protocol to prevent trafficking in persons and protect victims.

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