Human trafficking from Assam on the rise

Joblessness in State is key factor: Police

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: Human trafficking from Assam to other states of the country has been on the rise, and there are a number of reasons for such a trend. And one of the emergent causes for such a trend is joblessness in Assam.

According to police sources, as many as 91 cases of human trafficking were reported in 2016 in the State, 175 in 2017, 238 in 2018 and 87 till June in 2019. It is seen that the rise in the number of such cases after every successive year is astronomical. What leads to such a situation?

The police attribute it to various reasons, and most of the reasons centre around earning money. The joblessness in the State is one of the genuine reasons for the rising human trafficking from Assam, the police said. The police also say that the rise in the number of such cases may be because people do report missing cases nowadays.

According to sources in the State police force, while a number of the trafficked people from Assam work in parlours, a number of others work as housemaids that are a scarce in most of the metropolitan cities in India. “What makes the situation even more complicated is that, a section of trafficked people from the State refuses to come back to their homes when they are traced. They just feel cozy to be where they are, even as they have to work like anything,” a source in the State police said, and added: “It’s not that the police in the State have been sitting idle without doing anything to arrest the rising trend of human trafficking from Assam. We do conduct raids in various metropolitan cities as and when we are tipped off. At the same time, we carry out awareness among the people in the State. We do hold awareness camps in the State, including remote areas.”

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