Ferdous Ara Begum Joint Secretary, Ministry of Women and Children Affairs said at the same function organized by ATSEC Bangladesh Chapter and The American Center recently, "Human trafficking particularly the trafficking of women and children is a leading international crime and the worst form of human rights abuse, specially trafficking of adolescent girls is one of the major forms of sexual exploitation both within the country and cross border. Human trafficking is also seen as the most prominent cause of rapid growth of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which in turn, has a negative impact on the development process. According to a recent report from the US State department regarding global trafficking issue, approximately 4 million people are bought, sold, transported and held in slavery for sex and exploited labor globally each year.

She added that, "Bangladesh has often been identified as a country where women and children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking due to poverty, illiteracy and low status of women for a better life. Bangladesh shares its borders with India and Myanmar, which is also a pressing cause for trafficking in women and children.

According to a news item published recently, there is a claim that about 20 thousand women and children are being trafficked abroad from Bangladesh each year. Another source claimed that roughly 200 women and children are being trafficked in a month to neighboring countries. In absence of any dependable database regarding the trafficking situation in Bangladesh, authenticity of all these statistical information's are not always very clear. Establishment of a dependable data source is very essential to formulate a comprehensive macro level policy demarcation to combat trafficking in person."

She also said that," The government of Bangladesh is very much committed to combatting the trafficking through coordinated effort of poverty reduction, socio-economic development and promotion of safe labor migration. Government's poverty reduction strategy emphasizes on education, health, agriculture, social welfare, women and youth development, labor, manpower, physical infrastructure and institutional development in the rural areas. Government of Bangladesh has also taken poverty alleviation steps through micro financing and micro entrepreneurship to improve women's empowerment at the gross root level so that the rural economy could come out from the clutches of poverty, which is the root cause of human trafficking."

Emranul Huq Chowdhury Coordinator, ATSEC said at that function, "I believe that this film festival will be the first initiative to play the role of the vanguard on behalf of the partnering agencies and other stakeholders as well in making mass people aware against the trafficking inside the country. I also optimize that this film festival would strengthen the capacity of the organizations working against human trafficking and will encourage them to be more prompt, active and skilled to combat this sort of heinous deed happening inside the country and around the region."

The video films like "Destination Unknown", "Kothay jabo", "Kranti" and "Nishabda Jatra" that were shown at the functions were powerful in conveying the message that bickering over dowry plays an important role in the life of a young woman. Unemployment, illiteracy and poverty are some of the major casues of trafficking. Awareness of these factors should be spread thoughout our society.