Staff Reporter
DIMAPUR, OCTOBER 8
On the concluding day of the two-day seminar on human trafficking today, an 11-point action plan has been recommended by the participants.
Creating awareness by conducting seminars on human trafficking in schools, churches, seminars and beyond, engage efficient and trained law enforcement agencies on issues of human trafficking, offer training for all pastoral leaders on human trafficking, offer victims counseling training in churches, coordinate NGOs and organizations within and outside the state working on the issue of human trafficking by sharing resources, information and skills, request Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) to put in calendar to devote one Sunday in a year for social issues including human trafficking, to maintain consistency in organizing human trafficking, awareness programs in churches, associations, conventions, institutions, mobilize the churches to initiate campaign against child labor and human trafficking, campaign through symbols, billboards, street plays, local TV channels and other media, setting up helpline centres for victims of human trafficking and to come up with resource materials for teaching purposes and to request NBCC to disseminate the subject are the eleven-point action plans.
The two-day seminar on human trafficking held in Dimapur organized by Miqlat Ministry at its premises concluded today. During the course of the two-day seminar the position of human trafficking was highlighted by the resource persons.
It was echoed in the seminar that majority of the human trafficking victims are found to be women and children worldwide. It was also established that poverty, debt bondage, false promises on marriage and jobs, high demand for child domestic helpers and lack of job opportunities to be the root cause for trafficking. To make maters worse, weak law enforcement agencies encouraged traffickers to carry on the activities, according to the resource persons of the seminar.
With few job opportunities and ignorance among the community on human trafficking, poverty stricken parents and frustrated educated and uneducated unemployed youths in search of jobs fall prey to this trade, the seminar also said.
The matter does not end there as the traumatized victims have to go through the stigma of the society. Many people assume victims of human trafficking to be engaged in the trade of prostitution and the fear of judgment by society prevents the victims from coming forward, the seminar said.
