Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you very much for inviting me and accepting my presentation.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I will have to look for that evidence. There is collusion because it is such a sophisticated process. I mentioned that there is collusion between doctors and the traffickers. Both profit from this. This is definitely mentioned in several research studies talking about the organ

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It is very true that not enough attention is being paid to identification of victims. With identification of victims, you can get to some of the problems more easily, and it is not done. That is an issue that should be looked into.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I would love to do that. I was disheartened about this because in 10 minutes you can't talk about it.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  No, the thing is that they have national legislation on early marriage, forced marriage, against caste discrimination, etc., but the problem is that these are not implemented. In education, I'm talking also about formal education like raising literacy. Raising literacy will help.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  As you know, I worked for many years in CIDA. I couldn't say this if I worked in the government, but today I can say that I could count on one hand the programs that have been really successful in reducing poverty and attending to some of the other problems. Microfinance is a p

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Education is one of the root causes. You see, if among the poor people, even among the unemployed, there were a raising of awareness of the evils of trafficking and what could happen if, without knowing, just for money, you go there, there would be less and less trafficking, I wo

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, I have to agree that commercial exploitation is very important, and even the corruption we see is for commercial profits and benefits. It will not sound too good, but I will mention the remittances that Bangladesh gets out of some of these people who go abroad and are expl

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  What was the last question?

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Mostly the poorest countries in South Asia are the sources. As I'm saying, economic insolvency is the major problem, even in terms of sex trafficking, so the poorest countries are the sources. Bangladesh is never ever a destination country. It's a source country. Now, India is

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That is well known. I'm sorry I didn't talk about corruption. Maybe at the end I will say two or three things very quickly. There's no doubt there is a socio-cultural tradition in South Asian countries, all of them. I was born in India and I was there until high school. Then I m

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Regarding intraregional co-operation, SAARC is the organization they work with; however, SAARC, in my view—and I've been looking at it for a very long time—is not really working all that well. One of the main reasons is that two countries, Pakistan and India, within SAARC are not

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think I would agree with you, if you are saying that. I started with this, actually. My definition of human trafficking is not restricted to women and children only. It is also men, and it is very important that we include them. Yes, it is true that women are the weaker secti

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  On the issue of whether or not it's mostly intraregional but also transnational, it is very much transnational, particularly the consensual trafficking. It happens with both men and women. In Bangladesh, the contribution to the GDP is highest from remittances. Remittances are

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes. Regarding child soldiers, like this issue about consensual and non-consensual, because they are very young and totally unaware, it is probably non-consensual. In the cases of young men who don't have employment, I can give you an example of Afghanistan and the people I tal