Indian villages fight trafficking by registering people who travel for work

Because of the large scale trafficking of people from villages into the major cities, the United Nations Development Project (UNDP) is to work with NGOs in India to help village councils across that country to keep track of people who travel in search of work. They will also be asked to report any villagers who disappear and do not return. Keeping a register of people who have migrated for work will help police know who needs to be traced, it may also discourage traffickers from luring people into situations of slavery by offering them good jobs in the city. “For the first time, we are going to fight trafficking at the source,” Mona Mishra, who heads UNDP’s HIV and trafficking project in India, told the news agency Reuters on Thursday.
“Beating the traffickers requires a day-to-day, minute-to-minute surveillance that only the community itself can do.”
The scheme will be rolled out to 15,000 village councils in 11 states within India. The UNDP also wants to start building links between villages that have lost people and the usual trafficking destinations, such as Mumbai and Kolkata, so that it will be easier for victims to get back in touch with home.