Dear Editor,
Human trafficking is a shame to humanity. It is the third largest organised crime after drugs and the arms trade across the globe. Kids especially girls and young women, mostly from north-east are taken from their homes and sold in faraway states of India for sexual exploitation and to work as bonded labour by the agents who lure their parents with education, better life and money for these kids. Agents do not send these kids to schools but sell them to work in brick kilns, carpentry units, domestic servants etc. Children from tribal areas are at greater risk of human trafficking. There are manifold reasons for human trafficking. Poverty, social inequality, regional gender preference, imbalance and corruption are the leading causes of human trafficking. Human smuggling has become the modern way of slavery. What was thought to be gone so many decades ago, is forcefully taking a toll in the lives of vulnerable and unsuspecting individuals. It is slowly turning out to be a multi-billion dollar market place where people are being smuggled, bought and enslaved. The vice is not bad for those who fall victim. It is bad for the community as a whole. It is the need of the hour to raise awareness about human trafficking laws and work needs to be done to establish special Anti-Trafficking Courts. We must have to work towards the end of modern slavery, no matter how difficult and long the fight may be.
Vivek Koul
Bank Colony
Gole Gujral Jammu