Data bank on migration can prevent child trafficking

Increased inter-ministerial cooperation and creation of a national data bank on migration are required to protect children, who are affected by migration in some way, from trafficking and abuse, speakers told a national convention yesterday.

They identified a link between unsafe migration and children's safety.

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The convention saw presentations on issues concerning missing children, migration and development, and rural-urban migration.

It was organised by Save the Children in association with Plan International Bangladesh, International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Bangladesh National Woman Lawyers' Association, and Uddipan, at the capital's BIAM Foundation.

At the inaugural session, Sheepa Hafiza, director, gender justice and diversity migration of Brac, portrayed the conditions of Bangladeshi migrants within the country and outside and the impacts on the lives of the migrants' children.

Hagar Russ, director of child rights governance, Save the Children, said children who migrated to urban areas either with their parents or unaccompanied looking for jobs remained vulnerable to trafficking and abuse.

Quoting a Brac research, Micheal McGrath, country director of Save the Children, said, "Every year 5-7 percent of children aged between 1 to 5 years go missing from slums in Dhaka."

He said while poverty pushed people towards the cities, the demand of urban employers for cheap labour of children also contributed to migration.

Sarat Dash, head of mission, spoke of the lack of data about migrating children.

However, Save the Children and its two partners Uddipan and BNWLA, through a European Union-funded rural-urban child migration project tried to keep track of children by initiating a registration system.

The project conducted between September 2011 and June 2015 registered 52,600 children who are at risk of migration from 10 urban wards and 24 rural unions. 

In 2014, the government asked all union parishads to register children migrating elsewhere including data on where the child is going, to whom and with whom.