Govt mulls feasibility of reining private placement agencies to check trafficking

Kolkata: The state Women & Child Development & Social Welfare department has urged the state Labour department to work out the feasibility of bringing private placement agencies under the ambit of some control.

"A number of women go missing and then are trafficked on the pretext of lucrative jobs. Hence, we are trying to have a database of the private placement agencies and for this we have sought assistance from the Labour department. We have already given them a draft regarding our plan," said Shashi Panja, minister of state for Women & Child Development & Social Welfare on the sidelines of a cumulative workshop for

implementation of State Plan of Action against human trafficking.

It may be mentioned that in December 2014, the department had launched State Plan of Action Against Human Trafficking in Women and Children (SPAHT) as a pilot project in Jalpaiguri and South 24-Parganas.

Bengal was the first state in India to launch such a plan. "We have now decided to roll it out throughout the district. UNICEF, our key technical partner in the SPAHT process, and various other NGOs working with women and child trafficking have been roped in. We have Child Protection Committees (CPCs) at every block in the state that will organise towards finalising the action plan," Panja said.

The implementation of SPAHT is visualised through the convergence of various departments and agencies, where victims

remain central.

The department has come out with a handbook stating the responsibilities of government departments like Youth Affairs, School Education, Home, Panchayat & Rural Development, Urban Development, Public Works Department, Health & Family Welfare and Industries to curb child and human trafficking.

According to a senior official of the department, it has now CPC's in 2308 wards under the different urban local bodies and 49646 gram sansads across the state.

The committee consists of teachers, doctors and anganwadi workers etc. The SPAHT uses a child-rights framework to comprehensively map the responsibilities of key government departments that are tasked with affirmative action for children.

These responsibilities are operationalised through the implementation of central and state government schemes, as well as specific actions taking into account the states' local needs and

critical issues.

"The Swayangsiddha project to curb human trafficking is also being rolled out in the entire state by the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID). We are also arranging rehabilitation of the victims after they are rescued," a senior official of the

department said.