Guwahati: World Day Against Trafficking is marked annually on July 30 to make people aware of those who are being trafficked and taken away without consent.
Across North-East India, several programmes were organised to alert people that trafficking in persons is a crime, exploitation of women and children for tragic jobs of forced labour and sex.
In the year 2010, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Global Plan of Action to deal with trafficking in persons, urging governments all around the world to take coordinated and consistent efforts to defeat this scourge.
The theme for the year 2022 was “Use and abuse of technology”. It focuses on the role of technology that acts as a tool to enable and impede human trafficking.
The Centre for Development Initiatives (CDI) and Conference of Religious India (CRI) Guwahati unit highlighted the growth of the phenomenon worldwide, a heinous crime, modern-day slavery in which women and children are the main victims.
“Persons are sold as goods, many families are prepared to pay exorbitant sums to guarantee a better future for their children, however unsafe migration can land them in the hands of unscrupulous traffickers, says Sr. Rose Paite MSMHC who has done phenomenal work in the field of anti-human trafficking in North East India.
“Abject poverty and natural calamities like floods amplify the trafficking instances, however, the adverse impact it creates for the individuals is misery. Research papers and serious study of migration, safe migration, and prevention of human trafficking in North East India are important activities to curb the menace of human trafficking,” says Fr.Jose K.J.SVD the director of Sanskriti.
“Use of technology and the role of media, involvement of journalists and media houses and social media platforms are mediums available to check human trafficking in North East India,” says Fr. Tom Mangattuthazhe, the director of NESCOM.
The event called for various sections of society to prevent, rescue and rehabilitate the victims of human trafficking, certainly a long road ahead. The necessity of reinforcing cooperation with the local organizations engaged in combating trafficking and humanitarian agencies at various levels and coordination among them will offer poignant testimonies in future.