UNB, Dhaka :
The government of Bangladesh does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking though it is making significan efforts to do so, said a new US report released in Washington on Monday.
The government continued to prepare, but did not finalise, the implementing rules for the 2012 Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act (PSHTA) during the year, said the 2015 Trafficking in Persons Report.
The government lacked a formal mechanism to refer trafficking victims to protective services though authorities rescued 2,621 victims and placed nine in government-operated shelters, the report mentioned.
The government continued to fund nine multipurpose shelters, drop-in centers, and safe homes for victims, including victims of trafficking.
While the government reached a labour export agreement with Saudi Arabia requiring employers to pay certain recruitment costs, legal recruitment fees continued to be extremely high.
The report mentioned that Bangladesh is primarily a source, and, to a lesser extent, a transit and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking.
Some Bangladeshi men and women who migrate willingly to work in the Middle East, East Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States subsequently face conditions indicative of forced labour.
Before their departure, many migrant workers assume debt to pay high recruitment fees, imposed legally by recruitment agencies belonging to the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) and illegally by unlicensed sub-agents; this places some migrant workers at risk of debt bondage.
Some recruitment agencies and agents also commit recruitment fraud, including contract switching, in which they promise one type of job and conditions, but then change the job, employer, conditions, or salary after arrival.
Women who migrate for domestic work are particularly vulnerable to abuse. Some women and children are subjected to commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor in India and Pakistan, according to the report. Some NGOs allege instances of officials on both sides of the India-Bangladesh border allowing human traffickers to operate.
Within the country, some children and adults are subjected to sex trafficking, domestic servitude, and forced and bonded labor, in which traffickers exploit an initial debt assumed by a worker as part of the terms of employment.
Street children are sometimes coerced into criminality or forced to beg; begging ringmasters sometimes maim children to increase their earnings.
In some instances, children are sold into a form of bondage by their parents, while others are induced into labor through fraud and physical coercion, including in the domestic fish processing industry, or exploited in prostitution.
According to an international expert on debt bondage, Bangladeshi families and Indian migrant workers are subjected to bonded labor in some of Bangladesh’s brick kilns, some kiln owners sell bonded females into prostitution, purportedly to recoup the families’ debts, and some Bangladeshi families are subjected to debt bondage in shrimp farming.
The government of Bangladesh does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking though it is making significan efforts to do so, said a new US report released in Washington on Monday.
The government continued to prepare, but did not finalise, the implementing rules for the 2012 Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act (PSHTA) during the year, said the 2015 Trafficking in Persons Report.
The government lacked a formal mechanism to refer trafficking victims to protective services though authorities rescued 2,621 victims and placed nine in government-operated shelters, the report mentioned.
The government continued to fund nine multipurpose shelters, drop-in centers, and safe homes for victims, including victims of trafficking.
While the government reached a labour export agreement with Saudi Arabia requiring employers to pay certain recruitment costs, legal recruitment fees continued to be extremely high.
The report mentioned that Bangladesh is primarily a source, and, to a lesser extent, a transit and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking.
Some Bangladeshi men and women who migrate willingly to work in the Middle East, East Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States subsequently face conditions indicative of forced labour.
Before their departure, many migrant workers assume debt to pay high recruitment fees, imposed legally by recruitment agencies belonging to the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) and illegally by unlicensed sub-agents; this places some migrant workers at risk of debt bondage.
Some recruitment agencies and agents also commit recruitment fraud, including contract switching, in which they promise one type of job and conditions, but then change the job, employer, conditions, or salary after arrival.
Women who migrate for domestic work are particularly vulnerable to abuse. Some women and children are subjected to commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor in India and Pakistan, according to the report. Some NGOs allege instances of officials on both sides of the India-Bangladesh border allowing human traffickers to operate.
Within the country, some children and adults are subjected to sex trafficking, domestic servitude, and forced and bonded labor, in which traffickers exploit an initial debt assumed by a worker as part of the terms of employment.
Street children are sometimes coerced into criminality or forced to beg; begging ringmasters sometimes maim children to increase their earnings.
In some instances, children are sold into a form of bondage by their parents, while others are induced into labor through fraud and physical coercion, including in the domestic fish processing industry, or exploited in prostitution.
According to an international expert on debt bondage, Bangladeshi families and Indian migrant workers are subjected to bonded labor in some of Bangladesh’s brick kilns, some kiln owners sell bonded females into prostitution, purportedly to recoup the families’ debts, and some Bangladeshi families are subjected to debt bondage in shrimp farming.
