Disclosing this, speakers at a opinion sharing meeting on 'Counter-Trafficking Campaign among School Children in Dhaka' also said children, mostly school going ones, were the victims of trafficking.

The Centre for Women and Children Studies (CWCS), a research organisation, arranged the meeting at Biam Auditorium.

Urging to create greater awareness among people, speakers said Dhaka is one of the most 'child trafficking prone' areas in this region.

A CWCS newsletter said 2,405 Banglandeshi children including 1,209 boys and 1,196 girls went missing from January 2000 to June 2003.

Of them, 510 boys and 457 girls were smuggled out of the country mainly to Gulf states, it added.

Discussants said most of the boys below 10 years were used as camel jockeys in some Gulf countries while the others became bonded labourers across the globe.

And trafficked girls, between 11 and 16 years, were mostly used in the sex trade, they added.

According to a Unesco report in 2002, some 30,000 women, mostly girl children, were tricked to be taken out of Bangladesh in the last decade.

Lorraine Barker, Australian high commissioner to Bangladesh, addressed the function as chief guest while Dr Khaleda Salauddin, CWCS advisor, chaired the discussion session.

CWCS President Prof Ishrat Shamin and Shahidul Haque, regional representative of Inter-national Organisation of Migration, also spoke at the meeting attended by teachers, guardians, police officials and schoolchildren.