Contributors: Ms. Swasti Rana, Project Associate, Anti Human Trafficking, UNODC ROSA & Sneha Tandon, Intern, UNODC ROSA

Training of Trainers on Anti Human Trafficking for Police Officers in Assam Guwahati

Human trafficking is a crime that shames us all. It is in fact better understood as a criminal process rather than as a criminal event. India is largely a source destination and transit country for men, women and children trafficked for the purpose of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation. Trafficking of women from the northeast region of India has increased considerably in recent years. As stated by Shri Dilip Kumar Borah, IPS, IGP, CID (Nodal Officer), Assam, "During the period of 1996-2000, the Assam state recorded 3718 missing female adults. Among them 1837 are still untraceable. During the same period, 4259 girls went missing and only 1918 were traced".

Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, Bureau of Police Research and Development, New Delhi, UNODC ROSA, in collaboration with Assam Police conducted a three day training of trainer's (ToT) course on anti human trafficking for Assam police officials from 25-27 March 2009 at APRO HQ, Assam, Ulubari, Guwahati. The picture above shows Shri Subhash Goswami, IPS, ADGP, CID, Assam, Ulubari, Guwahati, Shri Dilip Kumar Borah, IPS, IGP, CID (Nodal Officer), Assam and Dr. Geeta Sekhon, Project Coordinator, Anti Human Trafficking, UNODC with the participants of the workshop. Other guests like Ms. Swasti Rana,, Project Associate, Anti Human Trafficking, UNODC were present at the occasion. A total number of 35 officers from West Bengal Police, NEPA, Meghalaya and Assam Police attended the training programme.

In the inaugural ceremony, Chief Guest Shri Subhash Goswami touched upon the present scenario especially in the North East in terms of the issue of human trafficking. He identified poverty to be the main reason behind the problem for which people fall easy prey to traffickers in the hope of employment/marriage/citizenship etc.

The specialized training programme was a 'training of trainers' programme that includes several group exercises, games, interactions between the trainees and the resource persons. The police officials were briefed and sensitized on the concepts and dimensions of trafficking, role of police in prevention, protection, and prosecution in combating human trafficking, distinction between human smuggling and trafficking, laws and procedures in commercial sexual exploitation and exploitative labor etc.These are the essential requirements for police officials who are handling cases of human trafficking, from which they are generally unaware.

Shri G.M. Srivastava, IPS, Hon'ble Director General of Police, Assam, was the Chief Guest of the Valedictory Function and stated that "Every member of the society has an important role to play to completely eradicate human trafficking. Though the police alone cannot change the scenario, it has the biggest role to play. He reaffirmed that these training courses help us to re-direct ourselves to these tasks and gear up our activities for all round development". Here comes the pivotal role of TOT programmes as they increase the horizons of understanding of police officials and train them, who in turn can further pass on such specialized skills to their other colleagues or general public also. The approach is not one sided as police officials can also come up with new ideas or share the problems and constraints they particularly face in such cases.

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