It is dismaying to see that the crime of human trafficking -- one of the most appalling affronts to human rights and dignity -- is alive and thriving in this day and age, in spite of pledges from the government in the past.
But there is a ray of hope that the practice will be brought to an end -- it is good to see that Bangladesh Rab and CID have recently made several arrests and filed cases against others over the trafficking of 26 Bangladeshi migrants in Libya, who were brutally shot dead by traffickers.
While there is no getting back the lives of the Bangladeshis who were killed in Libya, the only way to even attempt to redeem them is to identify those responsible for their demise, and bring these criminals to book.
Human trafficking has long been a problem within our country, with ringleaders and trafficking groups mostly targeting poor people from rural areas with promises of jobs in foreign lands in exchange of exorbitant sums of money before essentially handing them over to goons and demanding more money from the families of the victims.
The arrests made and cases filed are a good start, but there remain too many within our society who want to exploit poor and helpless people, and what is required is a concerted effort by law enforcement and the authorities to identify and stop such groups from getting away with the murder of Bangladeshi lives.
It is high time we removed this scourge from within our society. It is about time we save our people from falling victim to these criminals.