BD victims in Mumbai brothel

TRAFFICKING of Bangladeshi women to Mumbai brothels is rising making safety of poor women, especially younger ones in the country highly vulnerable. Reuters reported the story carried out by national dailies on Saturday. Human traffickers are at large in the country with collaboration of local political agents and law enforcers who are freely alluring poverty-stricken women in rural areas for better jobs in the cities. Once they leave their home apparently for Dhaka, traffickers transport them to Indian brothels, the largest being in Mumbai.
Despite a fencing wall along Bangladesh-India border, traffickers freely trespass women by managing Border Security Forces on both sides — a fact which is holding the lifeline of human traffickers unimpeded. The rising tide of human trafficking puts to question the government’s ability to curb the trafficking, besides more questions why and how the fenced border is allowing traffickers to push the victims out of the country.
There is no doubt our border must be made foolproof by more training and motivating the BGB forces while at the domestic level law enforcers must arrest the culprits and destroy their network. Most important is that the government must take up scheme to create local jobs at local level to give income-generating activities to poor women so that they don’t fall into the trap and become victim in the hands of human traffickers. Public awareness at rural level must also grow to alert people against the heinous human trade.  
Quoting an India NGO source the Reuters report said out of 213 children of sex workers enrolled at a night care centre in Mumbai from 2010-15, 128 had a Bengali speaking mother. The trafficked Bangladeshi women in Mumbai are too afraid of seeking help from police. The NGO official said trafficked Bangladeshis are also reluctant to bring charges against traffickers after being rescued by Mumbai police as the traffickers maintain a reign of terror in their locality in Bangladesh threatening safety of their families.
South Asia is the fastest growing region for human trafficking. More than 150,000 people are trafficked within South Asia every year, but the trade, worth $2 billion a year in Asia, is underground and the real number is likely to be much higher.
As it appears India and Bangladesh recently signed an agreement to strengthen cooperation and information sharing to ensure speedier investigations and prosecutions of human traffickers. It has no doubt made easier the rescue and repatriation victims. In our view the government must do everything to rescue our ill-fated women now languishing in Mumbai brothels and at other places and bring them in safety at their home. Local traffickers should also be sternly dealt with so that further victimization stops.