Women and children in Bangladesh are vulnerable to human trafficking because of persistent poverty, discrimination, few or no livelihood alternatives, and little legal protection. Almost four years ago, imams in the village of Chakoria began mobilizing their communities to fight trafficking by working with a Bangladeshi NGO named UDDIPAN, or United Development Initiatives for Programmed Actions.
“Working against trafficking of women and children is our moral and spiritual obligation,” states Mawlana Ruhul, chair of the Chakoria Imam Association. He is one of 2,400 imams who participate in the Community Mobilization Program Involving Imams in Anti-Trafficking (COMPIAT) project implemented by UDDIPAN with support from the AED Center for Civil Society and Governance.
"Initially I did not know about trafficking… and I did not realize that our Holy Quran provides instructions against human trafficking, but after training I found the issue is discussed in the Quran, just in a different manner,” explains Ruhul. He and other imams are leading efforts to build a network of imams in the 20 most affected districts. There are approximately 250,000 mosques in Bangladesh and at least as many imams.
“I consider the imam as the most important national media to deliver messages on anti-trafficking and other social issues,” says Mawlana Kafil, secretary of the Chakoria Imam Association and COMPIAT program officer. “They have the largest network, and there is no village without imams.”
Imams involved in the project include information about trafficking prevention in their Friday prayer recitations, and they organize village gatherings and lead community watchdog groups. “Now parents don’t allow their children to go to school alone and schoolteachers are more aware of the problem,” says Kafil.
Many imams have a deep-seated mistrust of development agencies. “They criticize [working with NGOs] as an anti-Islamic notion of work,” explains Ruhul. By linking anti-trafficking to the teachings of Islam and showing tangible changes in the communities involved, the project works to build trust between the imams and the NGO community. The project is supported by the USAID-funded Bangladesh Human Rights Advocacy Program.
“The rate of trafficking in our district has declined… Islam doesn’t support
religion without work and work without religion. By work I mean work for
humanity and to save people in distress, and trafficking victims are in that
group,” emphasizes Kafil.
--Rosy Hossain, Rezwanul Karim, and Susan
Ward
For more information about the Bangladesh Human Rights Advocacy Program,
please contact:
Susan Ward - sward@aed.org
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