US report

The team has given their preliminary reaction to their investigation. It has expressed satisfaction with the legal steps taken by the government but has deep reservations with the officials responsible for dealing with human trafficking whom they have termed as corrupt. The government's reaction articulated by the foreign minister went against these preliminary findings and rejected the truth in the report. Your editorial had added the demand side to partly defend Bangladesh. Then of course there is this nagging perception among many of us that Bangladesh' case was motivated by politics, meaning that Bangladesh was relegated to Tier- 3 because of the government's failure to send troops to Iraq.

The last point, that Bangladesh has been penalised for failure to commit troops is of course a non-issue because the US would not act this way overtly as it would be an uncivilised way and if this did go into consideration, there is no way to prove it. So much for this point. Then comes the point of demand as raised in your editorial. This point also I am afraid will get us nowhere because demand does not absolve Bangladesh of sustaining this trafficking. The comparable case could be the issue of drugs.

Demand for drugs is the highest in the US that sustains drug trafficking but this does not absolve countries where drugs originate of the responsibility.

Thus the onus for dealing with this problem is squarely upon us or more precisely upon the government that needs to do its utmost in bringing to book the corrupt officials who encourage and sustain this trade. The US team has taken favourable note of the legal framework, which is encouraging. With this as basis, the government should crackdown upon the officials who contribute the most to this unfortunate problem.

If our government does its part in reining the corrupt officials, we will get over this problem. Otherwise we really have only ourselves to blame.