Joint Committee Suggested to Fight Manipur Child Trafficking

Imphal, Apr 10 : To stop frequent child trafficking in Manipur, an NGO working on child and women rights in the Northeast has suggested setting up of a 'joint committee' of government officials and NGOs.

''It is becoming increasingly difficult to detect cases of child trafficking in the districts of Manipur,'' a spokesperson for the Shillong-based Impulse NGO Network (INN), Hashina Kharbinh, said.

INN is the nodal agency fighting against human trafficking in the Northeast.

Kharbinh, who was here recently, said there was an urgent need for a collective network of NGOs in the state as well as districts to seriously tackle the problem and felt that accountability of the Manipur government in addressing the issue was of prime importance.

Claiming that religious institutions are involved in most cases of child trafficking, she said most of the children landed unregistered children's homes in other states, particularly Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

On the pretext of providing education and jobs, these religious institutions take advantage of the trust reposed on them by the parents of the children.