Consultative meet on strengthening law enforcement response to child protection held

From our Correspondent

KOKRAJHAR, Dec 27: A consultative meeting with police administration on strengthening law enforcement response to child protection was held at SP’s conference hall, Kokrajhar on Tuesday under the aegis of Nedan Foundation, a Kokrajhar based NGO working for the protection of child, where senior police officials from four BTC districts took part.  The BTC-level meeting discussed the necessity of joint efforts between the police administration of BTC districts and Nedan Foundation to protect the children.

Nedan Foundation has been working on child protection particularly on child trafficking along with holistic children development in various locations at BTC in collaboration with the stakeholders for the development of children in civil strife situation, also building collaborative partnership on child protection in vulnerable locations. The NGO sought support from law enforcement agencies in dealing with the trafficking of children from the State and input from various quarters to deal with the challenges to protect children from various difficult situations.

In the consultative meeting, the objective of the consultation and voices of children by adolescent club members was given by Digambar rzary, chairman of Nedan Foundation, while the welcome address was given by Maya Rani Goyary of the NGO. The Additiol Director of Police, LR Bishnoi spoke about the increasing number of crime against children in BTC region followed by briefing on crime against children in Chirang, Baksa, Udalguri and Kokrajhar districts by the Deputy Superintendant of Police of the respective districts. A drama on child marriage and trafficking was shown on the occasion by Lwgri Theatre Group of Kokrajhar.

Talking to media persons, the chairman of the Nedan Foundation, Digambar rzary said his NGO was pioneered in combating human trafficking in Northeast India and it had been working in the north-eastern region with partner organizations in combating trafficking of women and girls, besides it was a State coorditing agency in preventing trafficking of women and girls. He said Nedan Foundation was also convener in the north-eastern region for reporting child trafficking and missing children linked with trafficking to South Asia Initiative in Ending Violence against Children (SAIEVAC), an apex body of SAARC.

rzary said the study done by the UNODC highlighted Assam as the second highest trafficking zone. Three districts, mely Kokrajhar, Chirang and Baksa of BTC have the large trafficking cases in Assam and the headquarter of BTC, Kokrajhar is one of the trafficking hubs known as the sixth highest trafficking zone of Assam where highest number of trafficking takes place. Some areas of Kokrajhar, Chirang and Baksa districts have the large number of trafficking cases as these three districts have remote areas which are situated along the border of Bhutan, he said adding that the Nedan Foundation had been working closely with the statutory body of the Assam Government, that is, Assam State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, CID headquarter, Social Welfare department, Labour department, UNICEF, Guwahati based field office and BTC level administration. He said as per CID report, at least 4,754 children have gone missing in the past three years in Assam and the trend revealed in the report was worrying as interl displacement caused by floods and ethnic violence had taken the toll on the children in the State as in many cases, children were trafficked from the relief camps for flood and violence victims. He further said last year alone, at least 129 girls were reported to have been forced into prostitution by the traffickers who took them to metro cities in other States with the promise of lucrative jobs and a total of 718 children were reported to be missing in the State in the last 36 days.

rzary said Nedan Foundation had future plan in addressing crime against children in BTC with law enforcement agencies to coordite and build strong relationship with law enforcement agencies on crime against children in BTC areas of Assam, sharing of data on crime against children and women with CID headquarters and with district SPs and ASPs, working closely in minimizing the crime against children and women, establishment of joint efforts in raid and rescue of children being lured or trafficked from BTC areas, building capacity of all the district- level anti-human trafficking unit police officials and preventing increasing number of cases of child marriage in BTC in collaboration with uniform personnel.