Traffickers call departure points in Teknaf of Bangladesh ‘Malaysia airports’

Emran Hossain and Mohammad Ali Zinnat did an extensive investigation into human trafficking from Bangladesh to Malaysia. For over three months, they carried out a thorough research, interviewed trafficking victims, brokers and rights groups, and travelled to the southeastern coastal areas before reporting on the clandestine crime that brings to mind the horror of slave trade of the past. The two apart, Porimol Palma and Belal Hossain Biplob tried to find out the reasons jobseekers are so easily lured into such a dangerous journey and the ways to fight the crime. Stay with The Daily Star as we uncover the modern-day slave trade of transnational syndicates in the Dark Triangle.

Sitting on the southeastern tip of Bangladesh, Teknaf is a perfect place for boats carrying migrants to set sail for Thailand and Malaysia in absolute secrecy. 

From the coast there, a trip to the two countries is the shortest from Bangladesh. And for Teknaf's unique location, it is easier for the traffickers to dodge law enforcers. 

As night falls, traffickers bundle their prey on fishing trawlers and leave for the two destinations from several points of the coast. Locals and traffickers have come up with an ingenious name for these departure points: "Malaysia airport".  

The traffickers use a route along the edges of Bangladesh and Myanmar's waters, and slip by Bangladesh Navy and Coast Guard and similar forces of Myanmar just across the Naf river.

Read all stories of "Dark Triangle" series-

• Slave Trade Booms In Dark Triangle
• Kidnapped, treated like slaves of past
• 'MALAYSIA AIRPORTS' in Teknaf
• Sailing off into hell
• Illegally driven as legally restricted
• One broker an upazila's woe
• Kidnapped, turned into slaves of past

The "Malaysia airports" are full of supplies needed for the journey: dry food, medicine and life jacket. The area also has dozens of mobile banking outlets, through which much of the ransom money is transacted.

Sometimes, family members of the victims travel all the way to the remote area from across the country to pay the ransom. At other times, transactions are made through bank accounts and mobile banking. 

Such "airports" are located mainly in Katabunia, Khurermukh and Sonapara. The Daily Star visited these areas in October last year. 

"Sonapara has everything a voyager need on the way," said Abul Kashem, executive director of the Ukhia branch of Help, an NGO. 

 "The number of these 'airports' is increasing because human trafficking business is booming. Also, traffickers keep changing the routes all the time," he added.

Many houses in these areas lodge jobseekers for Tk 500 a night. Local kids make money buying things for the jobseekers, who are not allowed to go out until they board the boats. 

Teknaf's Noapara is notorious for human trafficking where many of the abductions by traffickers allegedly take place.

Sabrang union's thriving Noapara Bazar is one of the last points in the south of mainland Bangladesh. Shops there sell fancy mobile phones whose main customers are human traffickers, locals said.

"bKash [a mobile banking service] agents work as accountants of the traffickers," claimed Abul Kalam Azad, a resident of Noapara and vice-president of Teknaf Jubo League.  

"Each agent has several hundred SIM cards for receiving ransoms," he added.

There are shops selling large water containers, sacks of puffed and flattened rice, fruits, biscuits and drinks for the jobseekers. These shops usually do not sell anything in small quantity. Everything is sold in bulk.

A restaurant named Bhatghar in Noapara Bazar, where hardly a dozen people could eat together, earns between Tk 3.5 lakh and 4.5 lakh a month. 

The Daily Star reporters saw scrap plastic traders stuffing four sacks with empty bottles of an energy drink popular among rural people. Each sack weighed 40kg and the bottles were collected from the "airport" area over just a few days.

Locals said most of these drinks were consumed by trafficking victims as it was almost impossible for the locals to buy that many drinks even in a few months.

THE BAIT

With the business booming, brokers have come up with striking new ideas to entice more people to take the risky voyage. 

In March last year, 10 men in Pabna were snared by a local broker. But the men had no money to go to Cox's Bazar. The broker gave them Tk 2,000 each for the trip. That was unusual given local brokers charge every fortune-seeker at least Tk 5,000 for "finding jobs" for them.

However, the travel money was just a bait. 

"It [the money] did not help us anyway, as we were robbed of all our money, mobile phones and even our sandals soon after we reached Teknaf," said Anisur Rahman, one of the 10 men, who now works in Malaysia as a cleaner. 

Of late, brokers have devised another strategy: If a jobseeker can supply four people to the chain, he can go abroad for free, said a Bangladesh expatriate in Malaysia who turned broker. 

THE SANDALS

Samuda Begum, 60, was taking her morning walk along the Sonapara beach on one morning in October last year when The Daily Star team was visiting.

While walking, she came across a familiar sight: sandals, 35 pairs, lying on the beach. She took them home, like she did in the past. 
"Jobseekers have to take off their sandals before boarding the boats," said Samuda, explaining, "It means 35 jobseekers left from there last night."   

A few pairs, some apparently of women, were seen hanging from a coconut tree in her courtyard.

A number of neighbours came to her house during our visit to her house and said they too often saw and collected sandals from the beach. We saw many pairs of sandals in courtyards of three other homes. 

A CHANGED COMMUNITY 

In this area, men who were once involved with fishing industry are now falling prey to human trafficking or becoming traffickers themselves.

Due to the shortage boatmen, many of about 5,000 fishing trawlers in the area remain moored, said Abdul Khaleque, general secretary of Cox's Bazar Fishing Trawler Owners Association. 

Over half the skilled people, almost 50,000, have been lured by traffickers over the past several years, he claimed. 

"The pay of a boatman doubled to Tk 2,000 in the last six months," he said, adding, even that did not stop people from leaving.

Mohammad Ali Miah, 43, lost his fishing trawler after all the 17 crew members sold the boat for Tk 11 lakh to pay traffickers for taking them to Malaysia.