The Government of Bangladesh has made general progress in sustaining, institutionalizing, and integrating the various anti-trafficking in persons measures it has adopted since June 2004. Bangladesh?s new anti-TIP inter-ministerial taskforce meets and reports monthly to the Home Secretary based on a daily report the former receives from a nationwide TIP monitoring cell. The Home Secretary continues to serve as the national coordinator overseeing Bangladesh?s anti-TIP efforts. Because its Home Ministry is still working with other agencies to develop a national anti-TIP action plan, Bangladesh has made little progress in implementing it.
Bangladesh continues to make significant progress in prosecuting trafficking cases. Since June its prosecution efforts have produced 78 convictions for trafficking offenses; this stands in stark contrast to the 17 convictions obtained during all of 2003. Similarly, the Government has made clear progress in investigating the abuse and forced labor of children in the fishing industry in the vast archipelago of the Bay of Bengal. Since October, Bangladesh Police and Coast Guard have rescued a total of 129 children from these islands.
Since June, the Government has investigated 8 officials allegedly complicit in trafficking; a marked increase from the absence of any such cases in 2003. The Government of Bangladesh also continued to cooperate and work well with NGOs involved in anti-TIP efforts; it referred victims to various NGOs for care. The Government has yet to make evident progress in conducting broad anti-TIP public campaigns.
Pakistan
The Government of Pakistan has shown some progress in its anti-trafficking in persons efforts. The Government has created an Inter-Ministerial Committee chaired by the Secretary of the Interior to oversee and coordinate its national anti-TIP policy. The Committee meets biweekly and has charged the Joint Secretary within the Ministry of Interior to develop an anti-trafficking prosecution, prevention, and protection policy. The Minister of Interior has personally engaged in the work of the committee and has participated in several national seminars on trafficking organized in cooperation with international organizations. The Government has launched an educational campaign focused on the plight of camel jockeys as part of its overall prevention effort.
The Government increased the number of arrests, prosecutions and convictions of traffickers in 2004. In addition, it has: created a dedicated Anti-Trafficking Unit (ATU) within the Federal Investigation Agency; drafted implementing regulations for its human trafficking ordinance; and forged an interagency agreement to create special courts with expedited hearing procedures for trafficking cases. The new implementing regulations include provisions designed to differentiate trafficking from smuggling cases. In addition, the newly formed ATU is developing an operational manual that includes procedures designed to prevent the harassment or punishment of trafficking victims.
The Government is building a model shelter in Islamabad, to be opened by mid-2005 to assist and protect victims referred by the ATU and other law enforcement agencies. In addition, the Government has formed a Binational Commission with Iran to improve cooperation on cross-border issues including trafficking.
India
The Government of India has shown little progress in addressing anti-trafficking in persons concerns since May. While a new TIP coordinator, the Secretary of the Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD), has greatly improved coordination of protection and prevention efforts, and trafficking convictions have increased significantly in two major trafficking centers, two other major metropolitan areas have made little progress to address India's huge trafficking problem. There have been negligible steps taken by central government law enforcement agencies to coordinate and develop a national-level law enforcement response to TIP. Local level law enforcement efforts, aided in part by NGOs, have improved slightly in two cities, while in others, the progress has been minimal. India's TIP efforts remain handicapped by a lack of central government coordination of relevant implementing agencies and apparently disparate levels of priority among them given to addressing TIP.
In Mumbai, convictions for trafficking-related offenses increased from 3 in 2003 to 11 thus far in 2004 but remain grossly unrepresentative in a city of over 18 million inhabitants. In Delhi, trafficking-related convictions totaled 68 thus far in 2004, also a significant increase over total 2003 convictions. In Calcutta, however, trafficking-related convictions totaled only 6 thus far in 2004, whereas 15 were obtained in 2003. Trafficking-related arrests have doubled in the state of Tamil Nadu.
The Government's appointment of the Secretary of the DWCD as chairperson of the government's anti-trafficking Central Advisory Committee (CAC) has led to improved coordination of anti-TIP efforts throughout the central government. The CAC Chairperson has led the revision of India's anti-TIP law that promises to decrease punishments to trafficking victims and to create a central "nodal authority" within DWCD to improve anti-TIP coordination and to serve as a national TIP information-sharing center.
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