Home minister P. Chidambaram on Friday said that there is a need to sensitise the police forces on issues related to trafficking and suggested making it mandatory for all police personnel to attend the certificate course on anti-human trafficking launched by the Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) in collaboration with the home ministry.
Mr Chidambaram said that the government is planning to establish 330 anti-trafficking units in the next three years. He expressed confidence that all states would agree to post officers who mandatorily undertake such a course before being appointed in anti-human trafficking units.
Launching the course on Friday, Mr Chidambaram suggested that those in the police forces should mandatorily enrol in the course. He also suggested that police forces should include more women officers who can serve as anti-human trafficking officers some time in their career. He said that trafficking is a “cold” and “cruel” fact and noted that a very large number of people especially women are trafficked every year.
The home minister said he does not think that the problem of trafficking has been contained.
“I am not persuaded that the crime has been controlled or it is been contained. It simply shows that in recent years perhaps the attention of the police forces have been turned to other crimes and, therefore, the detection, registration and prosecution of trafficking-related crimes has perhaps declined,” he said.