United Nations, Nov 15: Human trafficking and exploitation are rife among Rohingya refugees who have fled Myanmar to seek safety in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, the United Nations migration agency has found.
“Understanding the scope of human trafficking is difficult in most settings due to the hidden nature of the crime,” said Kateryna Ardanyan, a counter-trafficking expert of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), in a press release issued on Tuesday.
“In the chaos of a crisis like this, trafficking is usually invisible at first, as there are so many other urgent needs like food and shelter.
But agencies responding to this crisis should not wait until the number of identified victims increases,” she added.
According to interviews and community focus groups conducted in the district’s makeshift settlements by IOM, desperate men, women and children are being recruited with false offers of paid work in various industries including fishing, small commerce, begging and, in the case of girls, domestic work.
UNI
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