Bangladeshi women are being trafficked to India, Middle East and other countries with lucrative job offers and salary.
The crooks lured the victims to work in 'TikTok Star', super shops, dance bars, parlors and various homes. Voter ID cards are made for these women in India. An organized gang in Bangladesh and India is trafficking teenagers, young women and women with the lure of jobs.
Then they are sold to brokers. And once sold, they are forced to perform sex work in various hotels and brothels in India.
Experts said that although the monitoring cell of the Ministry of Home Affairs is working to prevent trafficking, it is not creating awareness in this regard at the district level.
Recently, a member of the trafficker gang arrested by the Indian police said that 1,500 girls and women have already been trafficked from Bangladesh to India through the gang that was arrested from the Satkhira border. Most of them are now located in Bangalore, India.
According to information, before trafficking, traffickers dream of making the victims 'TikTok stars'. Some lured them to work in their parlors and super shops in India to lure them into smuggling traps. The incident of Bangladeshi women trafficking in Dubai is now an 'open secret'.
Apart from this, women are also being trafficked in Nepal. Trafficking in tourist visas of girls in Dubai and Nepal has been reported.
Traffickers use various social media platforms to lure women into the trap of trafficking. They open bank accounts under different names to hide their identities. Most trafficked from Bangladesh are girls aged between 10 and 15 years. And in various countries of the Middle East, 16 to 18-year-old girls are being trafficked by increasing the age to 22 to 23 years.
According to the police, over a thousand Bangladeshi women have been trafficked through the Bhomra-Benapole border in the last few months.
Indian police have recently arrested four members of the trafficking gang that Bangladeshi youth Tik Tok Babu was involved with in India.
Salma Ali, Executive Director, Bangladesh National Woman Lawyers Association (BNWLA) told Bangladesh Pratidin, “Law enforcement agencies and human rights organizations must work together to prevent women's trafficking. Those vulnerable to trafficking remain at risk. There have been seven tribunals in this regard but they are not effective. The immigration authority of the country's international airport is also negligent in this regard.”
“Those at risk of trafficking should be provided with alternative income. Adequate security and legal assistance should be provided to victims in cases of trafficking. Sensitive cases related to trafficking should be tried quickly,” she added.
(The report was published in Bengali on print and online versions of The Bangladesh Pratidin on October 29 and rewritten in English by Tanvir Raihan)
