Workshop on human trafficking
Source: Hueiyen News Service / Newmai News Network
Imphal, June 20 2011:
A three-day district level training and awareness workshop on trafficking of women and children for the state police personnel kicked off today at the conference hall of Imphal West district police headquarters.
Topics on post rescue rehabilitation and reintegration of victims of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation were also addressed at the first day of the three-day event.
Speaking as a resource person, L Pishak Singh, chairman of Child Welfare Committee (CWC), Bishnupur district, said that the ease with which bails are secured from the court of law only encourages perpetrators of human trafficking.
The case of child trafficking is fairly common in Manipur but very few go on to be reported and gets filed at the police stations, he rued, adding that even if they are reported they take the form of abduction, forced labour, missing, rape etc.
that effectively conceals the gravity of the situation.
The few cases of human trafficking that are ever reported with the police across the state have not resulted in prosecution, he said.
"The traffickers are let off summarily on bail after incarcerating them for 3-4 days, after which its business as usual for them" .
He went on to say that cases involving child and women are particularly difficult to detect in the hill districts because of the preponderance of traditional and customary laws and institutions, which are even authorized to settle rape cases.
In the inaugural speech, DIG (Administration) Clay Khongsai said that child trafficking is generally considered a modern phenomenon.
The purpose of human, especially child, trafficking varies from use as bonded labourers and prostitutes in big cities, to recruiting them as child soldiers by the UGs in the state, added the DIG.
He maintained that child trafficking has risen in the northeast states in recent times and in most of these cases the parents and guardians cite poverty and the lure of a free and better education promised by the traffickers as the reason for their consent.
Human trafficking is carried out in huge numbers in the Indo-Nepal border, he informed, and said that the police and government law enforcing agencies therefore have a strenous role in containing it.
The first of the 3-day training session was participated by about 25 police officers, from the rank of ASI to DSP, of Imphal West district.