Anti-trafficking efforts limited

Bangladesh is not fully compliant with the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking but it is making significant efforts to improve the mechanism to halt trafficking, according to a US State Department report released yesterday.
The Bangladesh government made limited efforts to protect the victims of trafficking, while police registered 377 cases involving individual or groups of victims in 2013, compared to 602 in 2012, said the Trafficking in Persons Report 2014.
It stated that the government reported investigating 84 new cases of sex trafficking and two cases of forced labour in 2013, compared with 67 sex and labour trafficking cases in 2012.

The report, which categorised countries into three tiers--Tier 1 referring to those fully compliant with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act's (TVPA) minimum standards--placed Bangladesh in Tier 2, meaning that it does not fully comply with the TVPA minimum standards, but is making significant efforts to towards compliance.
The government convicted 14 traffickers in 2013, compared with eight in the previous reporting period. The courts sentenced five of the convicted traffickers to life imprisonment, eight to ten years' imprisonment, and one to four months' imprisonment.
The authorities investigated and prosecuted more cases under the 2012 Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act (PSHTA), but continued to convict only a small number of traffickers, according to the report, which is US government's principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking.
The report said Bangladesh lacked a formal referral mechanism and authorities did not adequately train police and other public officials on identifying and assisting victims.