Understanding the Cross Border Trafficking of Human Beings in India and Bangladesh

Over the last few decades, trafficking in human beings has become a major international concern. Humans are not property, but they are being trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation (CSE), forced labor and also for the many other purposes. It deprives people of their human rights and freedom, and also a global health risk due to infections disease like HIV/AIDS etc. Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing profitable business estimated at about 150 billion$ per year. South Asia is considered as the second largest number of internationally trafficked persons, where around 150,000 people are trafficked annually.

Thousands of young men and women are trapped and abducted to India each year from its international border. Some of them also migrate legally and illegally to gulf countries. India and Bangladesh shares its international border of 4,097.7 km long, with 30 districts on Indian side and also fifth largest international border in the world. It has been estimated that nearby 200,000 women and girls are been taken out of country in past 10 years. And more than 50,000 women are trafficked to India every year through its international border.

The presentation will explore the trend of trafficking in human beings from Bangladesh to India for different purposes. Those migrated people are being exploited irrespective of their class gender and age in different ways. It will also try to analyze the push factors to migrate them to other place and most of times make them vulnerable for being trafficked. As it has been observed that the poor helpless families and tribal societies have become main target group of traffickers. Further it will focus on the measures taken by the both government against anti-trafficking measures.