Human Trafficking in [Bangladesh Street Children in [Bangladesh] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Bangladesh] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the first ten years of the 21st
Century - 2000 to 2009
Bangladesh is a source and transit country
for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and
commercial sexual exploitation. A significant share of Bangladesh’s
trafficking victims are men recruited for work overseas with fraudulent
employment offers who are subsequently exploited under conditions of forced
labor or debt bondage. Children – both boys and girls – are trafficked within
Bangladesh for commercial sexual exploitation, bonded labor, and forced
labor. Some children are sold into bondage by their parents, while others are
induced into labor or commercial sexual exploitation through fraud and
physical coercion. Women and children from Bangladesh are also trafficked to
India and Pakistan for sexual exploitation.
- U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009
[full
country report] |
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CAUTION: The
following links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Human Trafficking Becomes Attractive nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publish/printer_16178.shtml They said tens of thousands of women and children are trafficked out each year from Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world. Poverty provides traffickers with people who have no alternatives for survival. They trust the offers of work or marriage abroad, which promise security but lead them to slavery. They are promised a better life.
But every year, countless boys and girls in Bangladesh are spirited away to
brothels where they have to prostitute themselves with no hope of
freedom. This is the story of the 21st
century’s trade in slave-children. My journey into their underworld took
place where its alleys and brothels are most dense - Asia, where the United
Nations calculates 1 million children are being traded every day. It took me
to places I did not think existed, today, now. To a dungeon in the lawless
Bangladeshi borderlands where children are padlocked and prison-barred in
transit to Indian brothels; to an iron whore-house where grown women have
spent their entire lives being raped; to a clinic that treat syphilitic
11-year-olds. She comes into the room swaddled
in a red sari, carrying big premature black bags under her eyes. She tells
her story in a slow, halting mumble. Sufia grew up
in a village near Khulna in the south-west of
Bangladesh. Her parents were farmers; she was one of eight children. “My
parents couldn’t afford to look after me,” she says. “We didn’t have enough
money for food.” And so came the lie.
When Sufia was 14, a female neighbour
came to her parents and said she could find her a good job in Calcutta as a
housemaid. She would live well; she would learn English; she would have a
well-fed future. “I was so excited,” Sufia
says. “But as soon as we arrived in
Calcutta I knew something was wrong,” she says. “I didn’t know what a brothel
was, but I could see the house she took me to was a bad house, where the
women wore small clothes and lots of bad men were coming in and out.” The neighbour was handed 50,000 takka
– around £500 – for Sufia, and then she told her to
do what she was told and disappeared. - htcp Choosing Death by Fire Over Marriage - Forced Marriages Are Driving Some Women to Self-Immolation The abduction came as a complete surprise to Miah, a London-based community youth activist who had been dating Shipa for several years. Shipa's family had earlier accepted a marriage proposal put forth in the "correct way" by Miah's family, and the young Briton was unaware that her parents had no intention of actually allowing their daughter to marry a man of her choice. On the morning of Oct. 12, 1995, Shipa was whisked to a cousin's place near Heathrow Airport, then flown to Bangladesh. She was not informed about her family's plans for her future until just a few hours before boarding the plane. ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Children are trafficked internally, externally, and through Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – There
was extensive trafficking in both women and children, primarily to According to government sources,
law enforcement personnel recovered 139 victims of trafficking during the
year. A cooperative effort between NGOs, the government, and the UAE,
resulted in the repatriation of 164 camel jockeys, 159 of whom were reunited
with their biological parents. The other five remained in NGO shelters at
year's end, receiving social and vocation skills training while the NGO
attempted to locate their families. BNWLA rescued 314 trafficking
victims from within the country and repatriated 32 others from the UAE and The exact number of women and
children trafficked was unknown. Most trafficked persons were lured by
promises of good jobs or marriage, and some were forced into involuntary
servitude outside of and within the country. Parents sometimes willingly sent
their children away to escape poverty. Unwed mothers, orphans, and others
outside of the normal family support system were also susceptible.
Traffickers living abroad often arrived in a village to marry a woman, only
to dispose of her upon arrival in the destination country, where women were
sold into bonded labor, menial jobs, or prostitution. Criminal gangs
conducted some of the trafficking. The border with Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2003 [73] The Committee is deeply
concerned at the high incidence of trafficking in children for purposes of
prostitution, domestic service and to serve as camel jockeys and at the lack
of long‑term, concentrated efforts on the part of the State party to
combat this phenomenon. Exploitation
of Bangladeshis in Malaysia - HR activist terms it human trafficking www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=83694 The exploitative practices centring Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia constitute
nothing other than human trafficking; the governments of Bangladesh and
Malaysia have not been able to protect the workers' rights, said Irene
Fernandez, a veteran migrants' rights activist of Malaysia. When they brought workers in
surplus numbers to Malaysia, they were only interested in making fast cash.
The outsourcing companies told Bangladeshi job brokers 'you pay me 500 ringgit per worker and find jobs for them and do
whatever'. So, Bangladeshi job brokers then bought the workers from the
outsourcing companies, and literally made them slaves. The brokers then told
the workers 'you go and work, I will give you food
and lodging'. And the workers were put to work for two, three, or four
months. So, the contract that had been signed between the workers and
recruiting agencies in Bangladesh, which was attested by the Bangladesh
government, had no meaning any more. The question is now, why no action
is being taken against the Malaysian outsourcing companies for the fact that
they violated the contracts. Again, the governments of both countries have
not been able to enforce the rules. Malaysia has to make its companies
accountable, and Bangladesh has to make its recruiting agencies accountable.
Because the passports of the workers are being held and the workers who don't
have any job are being locked up by the job brokers or the outsourcing
companies, it constitutes nothing but human trafficking. And, with the global
economic recession, the situation is going to worsen, because many of the
companies, particularly in the manufacturing sector, are collapsing. Bangla aiding NE human trafficking www.assamtribune.com/scripts/details.asp?id=mar2809/at09 The Director General of Assam
Police GM Srivastava today stated that neighbouring countries, especially Bangladesh, continue
to fuel the growth of human trafficking cases in the Northeast, particularly
Assam. “There have been many instances where we have seen that professional
human traffickers from Bangladesh after marrying a girl from a remote area in
the State elopes back home and after keeping her in the neighbouring
country for some time, finally sells her to brothels in metros of India,”
said Srivastava, adding that the number of duped
girls, who are being duped by this racket of human traffickers, is increasing
in the State. Attributing the rise of human
trafficking cases in the region to poverty and the simplicity of the people
here, the Assam Police chief stressed on the need for an attitudinal change
amongst the people to wipe out the menace from the society. Govt cancels licences of 32
agencies The government has cancelled the
licenses of 32 travel and recruiting agencies in the last two months for
irregularities in manpower business and involvement in human trafficking. The licenses were cancelled after
law-enforcing agencies in an investigation found the agencies illegally
sending manpower abroad, which in most cases led to trafficking of women and
children, meeting sources said. Police
and the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) are at present investigating the
activities of some other agencies and their licenses could also be revoked on
the same grounds, the meeting was told. 3,000
Bangladeshis in Yemen victims of illegal human trafficking According to a reliable
Bangladeshi source who asked to remain anonymous, “the "brokers"
take US $4,000 for each Bangladeshi worker and give them hope of good jobs
and salaries,” he said. “However, they mostly find themselves working as
cleaners at restaurants and companies or construction workers.” The source said that there are currently at
least 3,000 illegal Bangladeshi workers in Yemen who end up taking menial
jobs because they have no other choice. They receive between US $100-130 per
month, or approximately three dollars per day. They are promised a better life.
But every year, countless boys and girls in Bangladesh are spirited away to
brothels where they have to prostitute themselves with no hope of
freedom. This is the story of the 21st
century’s trade in slave-children. My journey into their underworld took
place where its alleys and brothels are most dense - Asia, where the United
Nations calculates 1 million children are being traded every day. It took me
to places I did not think existed, today, now. To a dungeon in the lawless Bangladeshi
borderlands where children are padlocked and prison-barred in transit to
Indian brothels; to an iron whore-house where grown women have spent their
entire lives being raped; to a clinic that treat syphilitic 11-year-olds. She comes into the room swaddled
in a red sari, carrying big premature black bags under her eyes. She tells
her story in a slow, halting mumble. Sufia grew up
in a village near Khulna in the south-west of
Bangladesh. Her parents were farmers; she was one of eight children. “My
parents couldn’t afford to look after me,” she says. “We didn’t have enough
money for food.” And so came the lie.
When Sufia was 14, a female neighbour
came to her parents and said she could find her a good job in Calcutta as a
housemaid. She would live well; she would learn English; she would have a
well-fed future. “I was so excited,” Sufia
says. “But as soon as we arrived in
Calcutta I knew something was wrong,” she says. “I didn’t know what a brothel
was, but I could see the house she took me to was a bad house, where the
women wore small clothes and lots of bad men were coming in and out.” The neighbour was handed 50,000 takka
– around £500 – for Sufia, and then she told her to
do what she was told and disappeared. - htcp Combating Trafficking for Forced Labor Purposes in the OSCE Region www.csce.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContentRecords.ViewTranscript&ContentRecord_id=397&
ContentType=H,B&ContentRecordType=H&CFID=18849146&CFTOKEN=53 www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/rm/07/93496.htm For example, a contract labor
agency in Bangladesh advertised work at a garment factory in Jordan. The ad
promised a 3-year contract, $425 per month, 8 hour workdays, 6 days a
week, paid overtime, free accommodations, free medical care, free food, and
no advance fees. Instead, upon arrival, workers (who were obliged to pay exorbitant
advance fees) had passports confiscated, were confined to miserable
conditions, and were prevented from leaving the factory. Months passed
without pay, food was inadequate, and sick workers were tortured. Because
most workers had borrowed money at inflated rates to get the contracts, they
were obliged through debt to stay. The sad truth is that we find workers
across the globe holding on to the thin hope that they will eventually get
paid, or that conditions will improve, because if they leave, there is no
hope that they will be able to repay the debt. Human trafficking on rise across bordering districts Speakers at a view-exchange meeting
yesterday said that the incidents of human trafficking are on the rise across
the bordering districts. The meeting
revealed that between June 15, 2004 and September 2006, 488 victims were
rescued, 379 traffickers were detained and 444 victims were handed over to
their legal guardian. The rest of the
victims are taking shelter in different shelter homes in the country. 21 points in border areas vulnerable Human trafficking is the third
most profitable business after drugs and gunrunning in the South Asian region
and twenty-one points in the border have been identified as vulnerable areas
in Bangladesh. Prof Shamim
said that representatives from the SAARC countries recommended widening of
the scope of SAARC Convention to exceed beyond prostitution to include many
types of exploitations, including forced and indentured labour,
camel jockeys and organ transplantation. Bangladesh
busts human trafficking ring: 34 rescued The women and children, some as
young as five-years-old, were brought by the traffickers from four neighbourhood districts with false promises of lucrative
jobs in India. But they are mostly forced into
prostitution as they illegally enter India, said Adhikar,
a local non-government charity for children from poor families. Church
Mission Society Drive Against Sex Trade in Bangladesh Women particularly at risk are
those living in areas where HIV is still relatively uncommon, with most of
the trafficked women are sold in to Mumbhai,
Rajasthan and Bihar in Bangla prostitution racket busted [PDF] [page 12]
A prostitution racket with links in U.S.
Report On Human Trafficking Reveals
Scope Of Modern-Day Slavery He said several countries listed
in the bottom category last year, including Human Trafficking Becomes Attractive nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publish/printer_16178.shtml They said tens of thousands of women and children are trafficked out each year from Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world. Poverty provides traffickers with people who have no alternatives for survival. They trust the offers of work or marriage abroad, which promise security but lead them to slavery. Children from Pakistan, Bangladesh
and Sudan are still being smuggled to the United Arab Emirates to work as
camel jockeys, despite a law passed two years ago banning their use. It is not uncommon for child jockeys to
fall off and be injured while racing, and their illegal status means race
track owners are often reluctant to take them to hospital. Instead, says Ansar
Burney, the boys often arrive with broken hands or broken legs. And many, he
says, have been sodomized. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 4 Civil Liberties: 4 Status: Partly Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide U.S. Library of Congress
- Country Study Four Nations Move Against Trafficking in Response to U.S. Report Bangladesh,
Ecuador, Guyana and Sierra Leone have acted rapidly over the last few months
to reduce human trafficking in their borders. In so doing, they have avoided
U.S.-imposed sanctions, according to a White House announcement September 10.
The United States issued a warning
of sorts in June when it released its annual survey of human trafficking
activities worldwide. These four nations were cast in the lowest ranking,
reflecting their inaction in lawmaking and law enforcement to control human
trafficking through their borders. Sexual
Slavery in Southern California Today? She was a teenage girl from an
impoverished village in Bangladesh.
The American couple offered her transport to America and a better life: a
nice job as their nanny and housekeeper, wages and opportunity. The dream
offer dissolved into a nightmare as soon as she reached sunny Southern
California. The couple informed her she owed them a huge sum for bringing her
into the country and forced her to work without wages for years in their
home, where she was repeatedly raped and beaten by the husband and abused by
the wife. After three failed attempts, and with the help of good Samaritans,
she finally escaped. TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS - In West Bengal, the organized
traffic in illegal Bangladeshi immigrants was a principal source of bonded
labor. Calcutta was a convenient transit point for traffickers who send
Bangladeshis to New Delhi, Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh, and the Middle East. Ground-breaking surveys expose plight of Bangladesh's
working children www.ilo.org/public/english/region/asro/bangkok/public/releases/yr2004/pr04_15.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] The most detailed picture ever
compiled of the conditions endured by Bangladesh’s most disadvantaged
children - those working in what are classified as the worst forms of child labour – has revealed that many are working 10 hours a
day, 6 days a week, sometimes for only food and a bed. Despite these gruelling
hours the vast majority receive little or even no wages. Youngsters
recharging and filling batteries averaged Tk.313 (US$ 5.30) a month while
street children – who earn by collecting old paper, street selling, shining
shoes, portering or begging - averaged just Tk.288 (US$4.85) a
month. Those in the transport sector
did best, averaging Tk.1,417 (US$24) a month.
Yet even these low earnings figures paint a misleading picture of the
children’s welfare. For example, while the average monthly wages of those in
auto workshops is TK. 470 (US$ 8), 40 per cent of these children said they
received no wages, just food and lodging. Help
Us Liberate The World's Slaves During my 31 years of Community
Service in India and Bangladesh, mainly involved in Community Development,
Rural Education, Leprosy Control and the support of Widows and Orphans, I was
stunned by another major problem, thought by many to no longer exist in this
21st. Century - SLAVERY - SLAVERY's MAIN VICTIMS
ARE WOMEN - SPARE THEM A KIND THOUGHT During my 31 years spent in India
and Bangladesh, particularly during two periods of famine, I saw hundreds of
people enslaved as "Bonded Labourers",
most being forced to work in such places as biri
(cigarette) / carpet factories and brick kilns with females also forced into
prostitution (sexual slavery). Combating
Trafficking Of Women And Children In South Asia [PDF] [page 89]
4.5.2
ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS AGAINST TRAFFICKING - The Government of Bangladesh itself acknowledges
serious problems in the enforcement of laws against trafficking, including
the 2000 Act. In its 1997 report to the CEDAW Committee, the Government noted
that implementation of the laws was weak, in part because members of law
enforcement were often themselves involved in trafficking activities, and
that the laws were sometimes misapplied with the result that victims were
charged with immoral behavior and put in jail. In general, the Government
noted that the judicial system is difficult for women to access, since court
proceedings are lengthy and court officials are often hostile or
unsympathetic to them. The Government acknowledged that law enforcement
authorities and the judiciary need to be better sensitized, and that the
repatriation of Bangladeshi women who have been trafficked to other countries
also needs to be facilitated. Child
Traffickers Prey on Bangladesh Nuru Miah's
hands show the hazards of his vocation: a small scar on the back of his right
palm marks where a camel once sunk its teeth.
Nuru, now around 10, spent two years as a
camel jockey in the Dubai desert. How
his parents were persuaded to send him to the Persian Gulf is unclear, though
promises of a better life, perhaps a little money, are the conventional sales
pitches. What is known is that he was sent from his home, a village south of
here, when he was about 7. Once he arrived in Dubai, his
meals were rationed to make sure he did not gain much weight. He was whipped
when he was disagreeable. Still, he was luckier than many of his peers. Other
little boys with whom he worked, he recalled, tumbled from the camels and
broke their bones. Nuru,
the son of landless peasants, is among an untold number of children who are
taken out of this country each year by traffickers. Some are kidnapped,
others are sold. Choosing
Death by Fire Over Marriage - Forced Marriages Are Driving Some Women to
Self-Immolation The abduction came as a complete
surprise to Miah, a London-based community youth
activist who had been dating Shipa for several
years. Shipa's
family had earlier accepted a marriage proposal put forth in the
"correct way" by Miah's family, and the
young Briton was unaware that her parents had no intention of actually
allowing their daughter to marry a man of her choice. On the morning of Oct. 12, 1995, Shipa was whisked to a cousin's place near Heathrow
Airport, then flown to Bangladesh. She was not informed about her family's
plans for her future until just a few hours before boarding the plane. Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation - Bangladesh TRAFFICKING - Police estimate more than
15,000 women and children are smuggled out of Bangladesh every year. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE
RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES.
Cite this webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin,
"Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery - |
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Human Trafficking in [Bangladesh Street Children in [Bangladesh] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Bangladesh] [other countries]