Event Description

A community awareness campaign on Child trafficking was organised in Napaam, Sonitpur on 2nd June 2017 in association with Global Organisation for Life Development, Supported by ECPAT Luxembourg. Madhurima Goswami the Head, Chandraprabha Saikiani Centre for Women’s Studies, Tezpur University addressed the meeting. It was chaired by Kaberi Sarma member of Gold, Jahanara Begum, Member of Napaam Panchayat, Asish Sinha, Representative of ECPAT Luxembourg, Raj Sarma Coordinator of Project Mukti, GOLD. The objective of the campaign was to make aware of human trafficking to the people of Napaam Village and to form a vigilance committee to fight for human trafficking. Madhurima Goswami in her welcome speech elaborated gist, source and the involvement of the people in the process of human trafficking process. She also opined that human trafficking is spreading in the Sonitpur District in a broader range due to various socio-economic and geographical strata. She also mark question on passive participation of people to prevent human trafficking. With referring many cases of human trafficking she requested the members and participants to stand unitedly for tackling the problem. Mahmad Abdul Kalam, member of Napaam Panchayat offer gratitude for having a platform to fight against human trafficking. He shared about the witness he had regarding child trafficking and his urge to solve the problem. Kaberi Sarma member of Gold discussed that human trafficking is the third largest business of the world and is widening day by day. Flood, communal clashes, unemployment, illiteracy, family communication gap and gender discrimination are the major causes of human trafficking. Victims are trafficked by the agents which are most of the time known to them. After trafficked they are engaged in the coal mining work, horse and camel jokey, blood harvesting, child plantation etc. Among the victims, girls are more vulnerable due to sexual exploitation and sex slavery. She opined that demand of girl from North East India is quite high due to their complexion and resemblance with the foreign girls. She further discussed about how to file a complaint while a child is missing for a week. To combat human trafficking she said community member has a role to play. Inspector-in-charge Jitendra Nath Sarmah said that if there are any cases related to trafficking they are there to help the villagers. Tapan Sarmah member of the Napaam Panchayat shared his experiences while he was the project Director under DRDA as he brought out many schemes for SHGs. During the project women were given awareness regarding dropouts, talaq and child marriage and get an opportunity to come out of home and participate in various skill training. At end of the campaign programme vigilance committee was formed. Ms. Sonali Boro , Research Asst. of the centre then presented a short film to the crowd. Then she enlightened the crowd interpreting the film that how the skills possessed by women, which is stereotypically labelled as ‘soft-skills’ can be transformed into productive work and how it can economically empower the women. After which the students from CSCWS performed a play-card act, holding the banners of Women empowerment and their present societal struggles. Another one act play was performed by distinguished students of Tezpur University where the issue of ‘Women and Polity’ was highlighted and showed how the lack of women in politics is backed by stereotypical male representatives of the society. The celebration ended with interaction of students and the audience present in the auditorium with the invited guests after which the entire team of CSCWS had lunch together and left for Tezpur at around 3pm