National Convention on trafficking of women and kids begins

Mumbai, June 29 (UNI) The 'National Convention on Trafficking of Women and Children for Commercial Sexual Exploitation' began today at the Nehru Center here.

The convention to be held till July 2, is jointly organised by 'Save the Children India- Save our Sisters' and the Mharashtra Government and supported by United Nation Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

This National convention will provide a common platform to a number of stakeholders like the local government leaders, NGO representatives, bureaucrats, police officials from 11 Indian states ( which are both primary source areas and ultimate destination states of trafficked victims).

These states are Maharashtra, Jharkand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Meghalaya and West Bengal.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Guest at the convention Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said, ''This is a multi-billion dollar trade. We should realise the severity and magnitude of the problem. Trafficking violates human dignity. The main reasons for trafficking are poverty, child marriages, female infanticide, unemployment, false promises, child marriages, riots, floods, and cyclone.'' Justice B N Srikrishna, former Supreme Court Judge said, ''This is not an occasion to rattle statistics. There should be zero tolerence as far as trafficking of children is concerned. Human beings are resources for society. Humans are outraged when there is a theft, they are outraged when there is a murder. Why are they not outraged when these things happen? There should be a same sense of outrage.'' A Paper on Globalisation and Human Rights said India was a source, transit and destination state for trafficking. It received women and children from Nepal and Bangladesh. It also sent women and children to West Asian countries. It was estimated that across the border trafficking accounted for about 10 per cent of the forced migration.

Of this, about 2.17 per cent were from Bangladesh while 2.6 per cent were from Nepal.

Interstate trafficking took up as much as 89 per cent of trafficking victims. In India, commercial sexual exploitation of women and children got social sanction due to certain practices like 'Devadasis and Joginis'. Trafficking also took place for sex tourism and pornography at major tourist destinations, the paper said.

Although there were few statistics available on trafficking, some figures indicating the magnitude of the problem said that brothels in India held between 1,00,000 and 1,60,000 Nepalese women and girls, 35 per cent of whom were taken on the false pretext of marriage or a good job, according to a UN Special Report on Violence Against Women 1997..

Nearly half of the women in prostitution in India were trafficked fron Nepal. About 5,000 to 7,000 girls or women were trafficked from Nepal to India every year. Nearly 30 per cent of the commercial sex workers were minors below 18 years. Many of them were children of 9 to 10 years of age.

The first three days of the convention will be attended by about 200 representatives from the government, non-government, donor groups, mediapersons and activists. July 2 has been earmarked for a high-level multi-stake holders meeting 'Sensitization of MLAs, MLCs, media and Corporate groups' to seek their commitment and proactive role in combating trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation.

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