Placing Bangladesh on Tire 2 ranking, a US government report on trafficking said the Bangladesh government did not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but it was making significant efforts to do so.
State Department of the United States unveiled the report titled ‘2021 Trafficking in Persons Report’ on Friday.
The report is the US government’s diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking. It is also a resource that reflects the US government’s commitment to global leadership on human rights and law enforcement issues.
“The government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period, considering the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity; therefore Bangladesh remained on Tier 2,” said the report.
The efforts included initiating more prosecutions, particularly of labour traffickers, beginning to operate its trafficking tribunals, collaborating with foreign governments on a transnational trafficking case.
The government also opened an investigation into—and Parliament revoked the seat of—a member of Parliament involved in bribing a Kuwaiti official to fraudulently send more than 20,000 Bangladeshi migrant workers to Kuwait, the report said in its Bangladesh section.
However, it said the government continued to allow recruiting agencies to charge high recruitment fees to migrant workers and did not consistently address illegally operating recruitment sub-agents, leaving workers vulnerable to traffickers and victim care remained insufficient, the report claimed.
Officials did not consistently implement victim identification procedures or refer identified victims to care, and the government did not have shelters or adequate services for adult male victims.
The report mentioned the government also reported it funded 95 per cent of its national action plan to fight human trafficking the government investigated 348 cases under the Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act.
It included 138 investigations continued from previous years, compared with the investigation of 403 cases, including 29 ongoing investigations, during the previous reporting period.
The government prosecuted 517 suspects (184 for sex trafficking and 333 for forced labour)—an increase from the 312 individuals the government prosecuted the previous reporting period, of which 56 were for forced labour.
The government convicted seven traffickers, which was 25 during the previous reporting year. More than 4,000 trafficking cases remained pending investigation or prosecution as of December 2020.
The government acknowledged investigations, prosecutions, and convictions for trafficking remained inadequate compared to the scale of the problem.
The report recommended increasing prosecutions and convictions for trafficking offences, particularly of labour traffickers and complicit government officials, while respecting due process.
It also urged the Bangladesh government to take steps to eliminate recruitment fees charged to workers by licensed labour recruiters and ensure employers pay recruitment fees.
The report also recommended increasing investigations and prosecutions of credible allegations of trafficking of Rohingya, including cases that do not involve movement.
