Third Category Prize

2007

For projects initiated, sponsored and/or implemented by individuals.

Bangladesh is a source and transit country for men, women, and children trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation, involuntary domestic servitude, child camel jockeying, and debt bondage. Women and children from Bangladesh are trafficked to India and Pakistan for sexual exploitation. Bangladeshi women migrate legally to Gulf states for work as domestic servants, but often find themselves in situations of involuntary servitude. Women and girls from rural areas are trafficked for sexual exploitation and domestic servitude. Burmese women trafficked to India for sexual exploitation also use Bangladesh as a transit country. The US State Department’ reports that 10,000 – 20,000 women and children happen to be trafficked globally on average annually. Bangladesh ranked in tier two in the said report in 2005. A number of studies documented that women and children in the southwestern districts in Bangladesh are the most vulnerable populations in this regard, who happen to be at risk of trafficking.

In 1992 Mr. Binoy Krishna Mallick and a number of dedicated human rights activists have founded Rights Jessore (RJ) as a national human rights organization to prevent human rights violations and ensure protection against exploitation and social injustice. Rights Jessore is mainly operating in eight south-western districts of Bangladesh. In order to implement its activities, especially the women and child trafficking and rights based initiatives, Rights Jessore maintains liaison and working relation with a number of different networks and forums.

Since 2005, RJ has been implementing Community Mobilization to Combat Trafficking (CMCT) a project aiming at community mobilization and social awareness building activities in collaboration with ten local partner NGOs based in Satkhira, Jessore and Jhenaidah districts.

The involvement of community people in anti-trafficking activities is the main innovativeness of the project because most of the community people were not aware and mobilized before the project commencement. Based on its belief that human trafficking is a great threat to the development and that traffickers are a strong syndicate, RJ has been able to strengthen capacity on anti-trafficking issue through direct involvement of Community People and formation of Counter Trafficking Women Forum (CTWF) and Ant Trafficking Network to empower women at grassroots level and raising their awareness against human trafficking through their direct involvement in the organization and conducting of all anti-trafficking activities.