Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI: The state government is ready to combat human trafficking and witch-hunting with a new state policy. The governor has already notified the new state policy to this effect.
The Assam State Policy to Combat Human Trafficking and End Witch-hunting aims at ensuring proactive and correlated action in the prevention of human trafficking and witch-hunting, to ensure establishment of a victim-centric approach in the response and rehabilitation of the survivors, to establish convergence and coordination to ensure that targeted actions are taken with thorough planning for rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration of the victims, to ensure monitoring and accountability of the stakeholders concerned at each stage, and to ensure that the issue of gender-based discrimination is addressed systematically and adequate ati-trafficking measures are proposed.
The Department of Women and Child Development will be the nodal department for the implementation of this policy.
The focused areas of the policy are (i) addressing the root causes of trafficking, including empowerment of vulnerable groups, targeting contributing factors such as gender-based discrimination, alcoholism, consumerism, unsafe migration, etc., and preparing communities to be aware of this organized crime.
(ii) To ensure removal of a victim from the place of exploitation to a place of safety.
(iii) To provide all-round quality support and services to ensure reintegration.
(iv) To ensure a strong rule of law that shall be a deterrent for such crimes to recur and by ensuring law enforcement is responsive and diligent.
The policy has the provision of three monitoring committees, one each at the state level, district level and panchayat level. Under this policy, the government will designate a DSP rank officer as an anti-human trafficking police officer and appoint an anti-human trafficking nodal officer in each district.
It is observed that the concept of witchcraft is deeply rooted in some of the tribal belts of Assam, such as Kokrajhar, Chirang, Udalguri, Karbi Anglong, Lakhimpur, Sivasagar, etc., over the years. It has been noticed that poor, destitute, illiterate, deserted women and widows are prime targets of such crimes, with males being targeted as wizards or warlocks in some situations. Witch-hunting is a gender-based crime that affects not only women but also their families and children. As per Assam Police data, a total of 690 cases of human trafficking have been registered in various police stations from 2020 to 2024.
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