By DR. UTTAM KUMAR DAS
What is more important for Bangladesh- preventing human trafficking or promoting safe migration?
To me, both deserve equal attention and appropriate interventions by the government and all concerned.
It is evident that neglecting one could instigate another and vise versa.
However, what do we see to happen? Especially, in Bangladesh, there is disproportionately more attention and emphasis on activities focusing on trafficking.
Human trafficking or Trafficking in Persons (TIP) is considered as a modern form of slavery. It turned to a global concern given its multi-dimension- criminal, legal, human rights, health, and moral aspects among others. There is political dimension as well.
There is a general believe that trafficking is contributed by the much known “demand and supply factors.” It has other sides as well.
No country is immune from this vise. Even, the United States, which is “monitoring performances of other States” with regard to prevention, prosecution, and protection of the victims, is not free from this. It is affected by trafficking crimes domestically and at cross-border levels.
Sex and labour trafficking is a huge problem there, as I understood during my recent stay in the country for a year. NGOs there are very much critical of government’s policies and actions.
Trafficking is not only driven by “demand and supply factors.” There are other reasons also: it is now widely acknowledged that human trafficking is an outcome of discriminatory global economic order and disproportionate sharing of wealth, and bad governance and lack of rule of law in a given country.
No other person, but the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission of Bangladesh, Dr. Mizanur Rahman who himself is a Professor of International Law believes so; and mentioned this strongly in recent conversations with me.
According to him: “Trafficking or similar other phenomenons are outcome of the discriminatory global economic order.” Under the so-called globalization process, capitals are moving across borders; however, human beings are not allowed for the same, as he pointed out.
Also, the so-called counter-terrorism moves in response to 9/11 have prompted to make the border control stringent. That is why people now have more barriers to go out of his or her own countries and enter into desired ones for economic or other reasons.
Even, the asylum seekers and refugees fleeing from persecution have to face restrictions and barriers to move, which are in contradictions to set norms of international human rights regimes.
That is why people become desperate and look for an alternative to move from one place to another in clandestine ways, even paying enough to and relying on human smugglers and thus fall in the trap of traffickers. The intended movers have no other options but to fall in those traps.
Even developed countries allegedly don’t issue visa against the number of migrant workers they need for keeping their industry and economy operative in a given year. This trend insists people to find alternative ways; even sometime, risking own life.
Thus, in the migration process, some become victims of trafficking. However, we need to understand the abuses and exploitations in the migration processes and becoming victims of trafficking are not the same. Both might have cross-cutting elements, however, motives behind, purpose, mode, technique, and consequences are very different for the two.
Bangladesh is considered as a source country for human trafficking. Especially, trafficking of young girls, women and children are reported to be at a serious form. At the latest, human trafficking in the form of offering overseas jobs are becoming concerns. However, we don’t have any reliable statistics in this regard. The figure cited by NGOs, sometime, contradicts one another.
Poverty, over population, lack of livelihood options, illiteracy, lack of awareness, social discrimination, corruption, lack of rule of law and access to justice etc among others are considered as contributing factors to human trafficking.
However, is incidents of trafficking outnumber other forms of human rights violations in Bangladesh? It is the time to reflect on this.
I am not to diminish the seriousness of violations of human rights through trafficking. However, my point is whether we are paying more attention to the issue undermining other contemporary problems. What about child and bonded labour within the country, forced prostitution, violence against (garment) workers, hunger and poverty?
It is the fact that the “seriousness of human trafficking” brought to the forefront mostly by NGOs here (like other regions). However, it was not without a reason. There had been a connection between the flows of funding from the donor agencies-mainly the western ones and NGO initiatives.
For a decade or so, the developed countries have reportedly been investing to “anti-trafficking” initiatives as a mean to achieve goals for their broader border control strategies. Those aim so that people have been barred even to reach to their respective borders.
This could heavily contribute to impose restriction on people’s movement, mainly from developing countries like ours towards developed ones. That is why number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in developing and under-developed countries is increasing while number of asylum seekers or refugees in developed countries decreased. Why this contradiction?
Developed countries now reportedly have to spend comparatively less for activities linked to processing asylum applications, detaining, maintaining or deporting “illegal immigrants among others,” since less people now could reach their territories.
As in the asylum system, developed countries have already introduced the so-called third country protection mechanism- meaning potential asylum seekers and refugees are barred to enter into their territory; instead they had to stay and live at detention centers for years under a so-called out-sourced mechanism in a third country having funding for allowing these activities. For example, Australia has used Nauru, and Italy used Malta for those purposes.
Coming back to Bangladesh, our government was under compulsion to act upon on trafficking issues under pressures from NGOs.
There was another reason as well- the “tier system” in the annual Trafficking in Persons Report published by the U.S. Department of State. For example, in 2010, Bangladesh is put in tier 2 watch lists, which reflected country’s inability to respond to the problem of trafficking as “expected”.
Earlier, Bangladesh was put in tier 3, which is considered as the worst performances.
In deed it is the fundamental rights for a citizen of Bangladesh, to enjoy right to life and personal liberty, equal protection of law, and to be free from exploitations (slavery) among others.
I am mentioning all these issues here, having observed the phenomenon that most of organizations earlier working in “anti-trafficking initiatives” are now moving towards “migration area;” again responding to donor’s choices and priorities.
All are free to work on an issue whatever makes them interested. However, question comes in whether someone has relevant capacity and skills for all works.
However, unfortunate point is that there is no preference to the national interest. Even, the governmental agencies are failing to respond in a right direction.
Given the context of Bangladesh, promotion of safe and regular migration deserves to get prime and outmost importance; however, it is not getting so (again there is no funding for such activities).
It is widely acknowledged that more than seven million Bangladesh-origin persons are now working or living abroad. In 2009, the country has earned US$ 10.72 billion as remittances through migration of 475,000 persons mostly as contractual labour migrants. There is a trend of 17 percent growth in remittances since 2001. The remittances are 13 percent of country’s GDP. Remittances are contributing to reduce 6 percent of poverty per annum. It (remittance) is 12 and 6 times higher respectively than the Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Bangladesh.
Though professionals from Bangladesh are going abroad with jobs, however, majority are of other categories-66 percent constitutes semi-skilled.
Given this huge contribution of migration, our successive governments are failing to respond adequately to meet the need and demand of this emerging sector- both from public and private sectors.
There are “huge activities” in respond to the human trafficking in Bangladesh. There are Inter-Ministerial Committee, Project Implementation Committee, Coordination Committees at District, Sub-districts, and union levels to coordinate “anti-trafficking activities.”
There are so-called awareness programmes up to village levels. One donor agency has reportedly spent US$ 1.7 million in three years for “technical training and raising awareness.” However, those activities did not get expected outcomes, since it has nothing to do with people’s economic or livelihood options. Also, those activities did not sustain since it was merely fund-driven.
On the contrary, what do we see in the migration sector- there are hardly such committees to promote and coordinate activities to promote safe migration from the capital to the village (except few initiatives by BRAC and others).
Even, there is likely no coordination among the activities of line ministries, i.e., Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment (MOEWOE), Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs among others.
I have been advocating for a high-powered committee under the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to coordinate and streamline activities. (I am informed that at the latest there is an initiative to coordinate activities by the Principal Secretary at PMO).
In a recent workshop (on 13 December) on migration issues organized by the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU), the issue of over emphasizing on “anti-trafficking initiatives” came in at discussion.
Human Rights Lawyer Adilur Rahman Khan rightly pointed out that Bangladesh should take a caution so that it does not stop people’s right to movement (go out of the country, which is a fundamental right) in the name of preventing so-called human trafficking.
There is empirical evidences that expanding opportunities for people’s safe and regular migration could contribute to curbing human trafficking. If someone has opportunity to migrate safely, why he/she would take risk of his/her own life. However, we hardly look into this aspect.
That is why Bangladesh needs to move its main focus from preventing human trafficking to promoting safe migration.
Definitely, government should ensure effective mechanisms to prosecute crimes of human trafficking and similar other crimes and continue activities to raise people’s awareness on this.
However, in the name of prosecution, we should not come up with bunch of new laws prescribing “heavy-handed authorities.” We should be realistic in our own context and focus on the proper implementation of existing laws- if required there should be required amendment and modification to meet the need to the time. However, emphasis should be on implementation of existing laws and regulations. For this, logistics and training for investigators, prosecutors and judges are required.
A comprehensive law does not mean to bring a set of new laws and lofty ideas which are impractical to implement in our context. We are also becoming sectoral; none is looking into the criminal justice system as a whole.
Also, there are roles to play by the government, UN agencies, and inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations: to negotiate with prospective destination countries to expand opportunities for safe and regular migration. The government should also look into the matter of expanding skill and capacity of would be migrants.
© Dr. Uttam Kumar Das. Prior permission is required to republish or quote.
The writer is an Advocate (Attorney) at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, and specializes on International Human Rights Law and Migration Issues. E-mail contact: udas1971@gmail.com.
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