The social media sites like TickTock, Like, Facebook, Emo, Viber, Discod, WhatsApp have turned into platforms for carrying out various anti-social activities including women trafficking. The traffickers have crated a strong network across the country to collect women for trafficking using those social networks. The miscreants are also trafficking women to various countries including India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Dubai, Qatar and Oman and United Arab Emirates through their agents.
Law enforcement officials said more than 30 gangs are active across the country to commit this heinous act. Moreover, some organised human-trafficking gangs are sending women to different Middle Eastern countries with tempting job offers.
Neither the police nor any private organisation has accurate statistics on how many women are being trafficked from Bangladesh every year. According to reports of various organisations, some 2 lakh men, women and children have been trafficked from Bangladesh in the last 10 years.
Every year, 20,000 women, adolescents and children are being trafficked to India, Pakistan and various countries in the Middle East.
According to another estimate, 50,000 women have been trafficked to India or via India to other countries in last few years.
According to another private organisation, which collected information from media, 500 women, aged 18 to 22, have been trafficked from Bangladesh in five years and 1,000 in eight years misusing information technology.
Of the 312 human trafficking cases tried in the country in 2020, 256 were related to women trafficking and sexual violence. Besides, in the last four years, 270,000 women went to Saudi Arabia from Bangladesh as domestic workers. A large part of them have been subjected to various forms of torture including sexual harassment.
According to law enforcement agencies, the horrific network of women trafficking syndicates is spread across the country. They, in some cases, recruit women for trafficking through their own agents or brokers. The use of information technology has increased recently for committing this crime.
Acknowledging the matter, Commander Khandaker Al Moin, director of RAB's legal and media wing, said that 25 to 30 different syndicates or gangs are involved in women trafficking across the country. All of the groups have female members along with male members.
“We have already arrested 6-7 gangs and brought them under the law. We are trying to arrests all of the gangs,” he said.
While talking about the increase in use of social media in women trafficking, Khandaker Farzana Rahman, Chairman of the Department of Criminology, University of Dhaka, said that women trafficking using various information technology apps, including TickTock and Like, is a transnational crime.
“The risk of such crimes is on the rise as our dependence on technology increases in our daily lives. The big reason for this is that teenagers or young women are being lured of earning money from these apps. They become victims by being added to different groups. It is important to supervise these apps to prevent such crimes. Moreover, it is necessary to see who is uploading what kind of content in the apps,” she said.
She also urged the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) to increase surveillance at the border to protect women from trafficking.
BDST: 1902 HRS, SEPT 1, 2021
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