Human traffickers sold 8000 tribal girls in four years: Congress

Raipur, November 26, 2011

The Congress has alleged that the government’s indifference towards the tribal had led to rise in human trafficking incidents in the state in the past couple of years. “About 8000 tribal girls have sold by human trafficker since 2008 but the government has not taken any step to check the practice in the state,” said the PCC president Nandkumar Patel, CLP leader Ravindra Choubey and other PCC office-bearers jointly on Saturday.

“Human trafficking is a serious issue but the government is non-serious towards it. The Congress had raised the issue during state Assembly session in 2008 and had claimed that it had obtained the list of about 3200 victims of human trafficking. The victims belonged to Jashpur, Sarguja and other remote forest villages of the state. The opposition even sought permission from the Speaker to produce the list in the House. However, the government remained a silent spectator despite shocking revelations about exploitation of poor tribal girls,” the Congress leaders said.

“There was continuous rise in human trafficking incidents since 2008. By 2009, there were 4500 tribal girls were sold while till December 2010 to cases of human trafficking rose to 7000,” they said.

“The major reason of human trafficking in the state is government’s inability to spend the funds meant for radical development of tribal regions,” they added.

They said about 82 percent of the total fund realised for different schemes to be implemented in tribal areas remained unspent. “While cent percent funds sanctioned for the integrated service scheme under Women and Child Development department and schemes pertaining to child development remained unspent,” the Congmen informed.

“If the government claims that it is not protecting human traffickers then it should disclose the number of placement agencies and touts against whom action had been taken and the number of criminal cases filed against those who purchased the tribal girls and were exploiting them,” asked the Congress leaders.

The Congmen demanded from the government to quickly trap the human traffickers and take criminal action against them.