Manipur sleeps over human trafficking issue
State 2nd highest in human trafficking cases
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, July 02 2012: Although Manipur has earned the dubious extinction of being second highest state from where cases of human trafficking to Goa has been reported just after Mumbai, none of the State officials participated in a consultation programme on human trafficking held at Goa recently.

Even though invitation for the consultation had been reportedly sent to the Director, there was no participation from the side of the Directorate of Social Welfare Department, Manipur, thus indicting the kind of concern that the state officials have over the issue.

During the consultation it also came to light that a large number of victims from Manipur get re-trafficked due to lack of rehabilitation services back home or pressure of traffickers who operate in Manipur.

It was strongly felt that there was a need for active participation from the social welfare department and police from Manipur in combating human trafficking.

The two-day long consultation programme was organised by Arz, (Nodal - NNGO Anti Human Trafficking Unit, of Goa police) in collaboration with the Department of Women and Child Development, Goa for the service providers working towards combating human trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation from Goa and source states at the Goa Secretariat from June 26 to 27 .

Inaugurated by Keshab Chandra IAS, Secretary, Women & Child Development, Goa, the consultation was attended by the police officers, representatives from Social Welfare Department and NGO's from Goa, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Assam, West Bengal, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

From Manipur two NGOs, New Life and Fxb Suraksha participated in the consultation.

During the consultation Arun Pandey, Director of Arz shared that Goa is mainly a destination state, where girls and women from different parts of India are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation.

The states from where the victims are trafficked to Goa include Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram.

He further shared that, in Goa the government and the non-government organizations have taken various steps towards the rescue of trafficked victims, rehabilitation of the victims and the repatriation and reintegration of victims of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation.

While explaining the purpose of the consultation, he observed that the problem of human trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation in Goa can be properly addressed if there is a proper sharing and coordination between the government and the non government organizations in Goa and the agencies in the source states.

He further added that the workshop aims for a platform for the government and the non government agencies from Goa and the source states to share challenges faced for home investigation, rehabilitation, re-integration, follow-up, prosecution, etc.

Opportunity to service providers from the source state to share about the support they can provide to address the challenges faced by service providers in the destination state was also discussed.

During the workshop Pandey shared about the phenomenon of human trafficking in Goa and also presented statistics of the rescued victims in the last three years.

According, to the data presented a total of 179 victims were rescued by Goa police.

Among the rescued girls Manipur is the second largest with 31 and Mumbai with 39 .

Among the North east states, Manipur is the highest.

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