By R Lester Makang
UKHRUL, May 13: In recent years, Ukhrul district has emerged as an easy target for an expanding network of child traffickers from across the country.
While children from impoverished families in remote areas of the district are generally considered a soft target category, poor kids — whose parents/guardians are illiterate and ignorant — have fallen prey to this nefarious racket the most.
Known as a form of modern slavery, this illegal practice of trading human beings invariably rely on its tested modus operandi — offering of promising job prospects and this has allegedly succeeded in enticing a number of youngsters from both town as well as interior areas of Ukhrul in recent years.
It is then not only the state of abject poverty but the shameful lack of knowledge or information among parents/guardians making them unable to discern any danger in migration of their wards to bigger cities.
Against the backdrop of this prevailing scenario, the Tangkhul Shanao Long (TSL) is stepping up its efforts to create mass awareness about human trafficking from the grassroots level across the four zones of the district.
“We are taking up awareness campaigns on impact of migration and child trafficking from the lowest strata of our society because this is ultimately where human trafficking takes shape, ” said Ringluiwon, president of TSL here on Tuesday.
“The rising cases of child trafficking in the district clearly reflect ignorant state of mind and illiterate mentality among parents of the child victims, ” she asserted before adding that directing awareness to people at the grassroots level should be the first step toward checking the illegal practice.
At the same time, charting out their plans, Ringluiwon said that TSL is all set to kick start its campaign from May 19 to May 24 in Kasom Khullen area where 23 villages under the sub division will be covered as first phase.
“This will be followed by similar campaign from May 26 till May 30 in eastern zone under Phungyar sub division, ” she continued and added that schedule with regard to western and northern zones would be worked out later on.
