A significant number of jobseekers are being trapped by human traffickers every year in the name of labour migration due to lack of livelihood programme at home, experts and activists said at a webinar.
They said a section of unscrupulous recruiters take advantage of joblessness of youths and enter the migration process to trap jobseekers.
Prosecution, proper investigation and overall implementation of existing laws are crucial to combating the crime, they added.
The speakers made the observations at the webinar on 'Stories of Human Trafficking: Straight from the victims' jointly organised by WARBE Development Foundation and EMK (Edward M. Kennedy) Center on Sunday night.
Dipta Rakshit, technical team leader and protection advisor of Winrock International, said human traffickers have created multidimensional routes to exploit jobseekers due to a lack of preventive measures.
She said a lot of human trafficking incidents happened over the decades but safe migration was not ensured in the country.
It is necessary to identify trafficking victims properly and give them protection and support, she added.
Ms Rakshit also said although human trafficking cases should be settled by 180 days as per Human Trafficking Deterrence and Suppression Act (2012), most of cases are not settled on time.
Victims then negotiate with criminals as they fail to continue with their cases, she mentioned.
Binoy Krishna Mallick, executive director of Rights Jessore, stressed the need for creating awareness about the human trafficking. He also underscored the need for ensuring job contract papers to the workers before sending them abroad.
Muhammad Mahdy Hassan, national programme officer (TIP and SOM) at United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said existing anti-human trafficking law-2012 has been enacted in line with the United Nations' Palermo protocols. The incidents of human trafficking will come down if the law is enforced properly.
Jasiya Khatoon, director of WARBE, moderated the programme while WARBE chair Syed Saiful Haque and trafficking victims, among others, shared their experience and views.
