Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Saturday reiterated government’s ‘zero-tolerance’ policy against human trafficking, and emphasised the need of having latest modern technology by the law enforcers to combat human trafficking.
He elaborated the steps undertaken by the government, especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its missions abroad, to deal with human trafficking in the domains of awareness building, reporting, rescue and prosecution of traffickers.
He informed that, since September 2021, the government has repatriated around 2500 victims of trafficking.
The Foreign Minister was speaking at the national consultation on ‘Combatting Human Trafficking in the Context of Technology Use and its Abuse’, organised by the Public Security Division and the Bangladesh UN Network on Migration.
Noting that technology is like a gun, capable of doing good or bad depending on its user, the Foreign Minister underscored that the use of modern technology by the human traffickers can cause greater harm to society.
Regarding awareness building, he referred to the recent town hall meeting held by MOFA in Shariatpur and similar programme in Sylhet; and informed that MOFA will hold such awareness building activities in other districts also.
Recalling that the government stopped high-speed internet facilities in Rohingya camps to reduce human trafficking and other transboundary crimes, Foreign Minister Momen informed that this has to be reopened as per the demand of western countries.
Depicting Bangladesh’s ratification of a number of international instruments on human trafficking as well as enacting necessary national laws, he underscored that the government is serious about its international commitments and national obligations related to combatting human trafficking.
Underscoring the need to have a comprehensive view on illegal migration and human trafficking, the foreign minister stated the fact that the existing economic disparity among developed and developing countries is indeed the root cause of large scale unsafe and irregular migration; and therefore, the developed countries need to allocate more resources for the socio-economic progress of developing countries.
He further emphasised on the importance of technology transfer to developing countries in order to enable them to use modern technologies to combat human trafficking.
Noting that human trafficking is a crime of trans-national nature, he opined that this would not be possible to fully contain this menace without international cooperation and concerted efforts.
Recalling the historical perspective that, before the World Wars there were not so many divisions of borders, Dr Momen urged the developed nations to become more humane to all migrants, and to work closely with developing countries to enhance safe and orderly migration.
He concluded reiterating the government’s firm commitment to combat human trafficking of all possible forms.
