Bangladesh & Trafficking in Persons 2022
#Bangladesh TIER2??#trafficking?and Important Points??#TIP?U.S. Department of State
The government increased overall law enforcement efforts. The 2012 Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act (PSHTA) criminalized sex trafficking and labor.?
The government did not take adequate steps to address internal sex trafficking or official complicity, both of which remained pervasive.?
The seven Anti-Trafficking Tribunals—judges and special prosecutors assigned to hear human trafficking cases and address the substantial case backlog.?
The government continued to allow mobile courts, established under the executive branch, to adjudicate labor violations, although the courts could not address labor trafficking claims.??
The government also maintained mutual legal assistance pacts with South Africa and India to support investigations of trafficking cases and maintained extradition treaties with India, South Africa, and Thailand to ensure that traffickers returned to face trial.?
The PSHTA includes a provision for non-citizens to file trafficking cases.
Official complicity in human trafficking, trafficking-related corruption, and impunity for traffickers remained serious concerns.?
Government officials, including parliamentarians, maintained close ties to foreign employment agencies, there were concerns such officials had conflicts of interest .?
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the government’s lead agency for combating trafficking, had SOPs for proactive trafficking victim identification
Law enforcement did not uniformly employ SOPs?
Counter Trafficking Committee (CTC) members and police used referral directories developed by a partner organization to refer victims and at-risk individuals to services.?
Police operated multiple centers for women and child victims of violence, including trafficking, in each of Bangladesh’s eight divisions, offering short-term shelter, medical services, and psychological care.?
The government allocated funding to provide legal services to trafficking victims through the district offices of the National Legal Aid Service Organization (NLASO).?
Foreign victims of trafficking were legally entitled to the same benefits as Bangladeshi nationals under the PSHTA.?
The Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment (MEWOE) maintained 29 labor offices, or labor welfare wings, in embassies and consulates in 26 major destination countries .?
?The government worked with an international organization to repatriate 35 Bangladeshi trafficking victims from Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Vanuatu, and Vietnam.?
The MHA and the Government of India continued to finalize victim identification and repatriation SOPs.?
While the 2012 PSHTA mandated creation of a fund to assist victims in seeking compensation from their traffickers, the government had not yet created the fund
Bureau of Manpower and Employment Training (BMET), which facilitated the arbitration, prohibited NGO advocates from accompanying migrant workers, forcing workers to arbitrate claims alone against both powerful recruitment agencies and BMET.?
The government began to revise its 2018-2022 .??
The National Coordination Committee to Combat Human Trafficking, Committee to Monitor the National Plan of Action for Combatting Human Trafficking, and the Vigilance Task Force (VTF).?
The VTF-operated mobile courts received complaints, took legal action against agencies and institutions, disseminated migration information to agencies, and prevented human trafficking under the pretenses of labor migration.?
The Rescue, Recovery, Repatriation, and Reintegration (RRRI) Task Force primarily focused on trafficking cases involving women and children and coordinated with Indian counterparts.?
The government continued to support counter trafficking committees (CTCs) at district, sub-district, and union levels to facilitate coordination between local governments and civil society to combat human trafficking.??
The government maintained 15 bilateral labor agreements.?
The District Employment and Manpower Office (DEMO) and Technical Training Centers also provided pre-departure training for migrant workers on topics such as labor rights, labor laws, and access to overseas assistance.?
The MEWOE began the process of amending the Overseas Employment and Migration Act (OEMA), 2013—which will be known as the Overseas Employment and Migration Act, (Revised) 2022—to bring recruiting agents and representatives under greater accountability and transparency.?
The Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE) is the only authority or responsible for enforcing labor laws related to child labor and may never referred a case to the criminal courts.?
The government reported the demotion of one repatriated peacekeeper for a sexual assault involving a child in Haiti in 2017.?
Commercial sex is legal in registered brothels, and the individuals involved—including foreign nationals—must receive documentation from police confirming their consent and appropriate age.?
The government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for child sex tourism
Traffickers exploit Bangladeshi women and girls in trafficking abroad, including in India, Pakistan, Gulf countries, Lebanon or Jordan??Republic of China (PRC) and??Middle East, Maldives.?
Traffickers have reportedly become increasingly sophisticated at deceiving the families of victims to delay filing of missing persons reports.?
Child sex trafficking remained widespread.
Experts estimate that 20,000 children are both growing up in and exploited in commercial sex in Bangladeshi brothels.
Traffickers have increasingly lured potential victims through social media, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and mobile messages.?
Some traffickers force sex trafficking victims to become addicted to drugs and use addiction to keep them in sex trafficking and involuntary unlawful acts.?
Sex traffickers exploit children experiencing homelessness or using the streets as a source of livelihood in exchange for food, shelter, protection, and money.?
Bangladesh hosts nearly one million Rohingya in refugee camps and host communities in Cox’s Bazar near the Burmese border and in other parts of the country, approximately 750,000 of whom arrived after August 2017. Traffickers exploit Rohingya men, women, and children from refugee camps in sex and labor trafficking both within Bangladesh and transnationally.?