Technology and Human Trafficking
World Day Against Trafficking in Persons is celebrated to create more awareness about the offence of human trafficking. The traffickers employ different methods in committing this offence; however, technology have been playing a significant role. Anyone from the society may fall prey to human traffickers; however, women and children are the most vulnerable and they can be lured through the social media. Many dedicated websites generate significant amount of profit at the expense of human trafficking by producing sexually explicit content and pornography.
Without proper regulations and legal execution, it has become difficult to keep the website owners accountable before the laws, even if the authorities keep an eye on the website running in the territory of Bangladesh, it is mostly difficult to hold the predators accountable as these online trafficking often takes place transnationally. At this point, the involvement of relevant stakeholders across different countries becomes more important.
Online trafficking is not just limited to the sex trafficking of the victims; online employment, marriage agencies and internet chat rooms, fallacious opportunities to study in abroad, fraudulent working opportunities abroad misleads and traps the victims into human trafficking.
The question remains, whether our legal and technological resources are adequate to prevent, trace and punish the human trafficking offenses and offenders?
We may consider creating a separate online-based service under the periphery of the legal stakeholders; whose sole responsibility would be to find out the possible and existing online based human trafficking offenses. It is widely known and accepted that internet is and can be used as a hub of criminal offences and trafficking in persons is not an exception, but existence of proper regulations and technical assistance can curb the number of cases and create more precise data for the stakeholders to consider for creating proper safeguards for the victims and people in general.
The writer is a Research Assistant.