DHAKA, 02 July 2022, (TON): The Embassy of Japan has celebrated its 50 years in Bangladesh.

Foreign secretary Masud Bin Momen joined the function in Dhaka.

Japan recognised Bangladesh as a sovereign state on February 10, 1972, soon after its independence.

The country opened its embassy in Dhaka on July 1, 1972.

Japanese ambassador to Bangladesh Ito Naoki conferred commendations of foreign minister to the Japanese Language and Culture programme of the Institute of Modern Languages and Department of Japanese Studies of the University of Dhaka and Matiur Rahman in recognition of their significant contribution to building the foundations of the current Bangladesh-Japan ties.

DHAKA, 02 July 2022, (TON): Executive board president of UNDP, UNFPA, and UNOPS, Yoka Brandt has said that the UN has a ‘strong relationship’ with the government of Bangladesh.

It wants to further build on that to facilitate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

Brandt said “we are here to see how we can work together more efficiently to that end, especially as the country is poised for LDC graduation.”

A high-level delegation of the executive board of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Population Fund, and United Nations Office for Project Services visited Bangladesh on a week-long mission to see the projects implemented by the UN and meet the government.

According to UNDP “led by the board’s president, Yoka Brandt, the delegation arrived in Dhaka on June 25 and left on July 1.”

DHAKA, 02 July 2022, (TON): Sri Lanka's state-owned Jaya Container Terminal at Colombo Port has offered priority berthing facilities to Bangladeshi feeder vessels.

According to a message “Chairman of Sri Lanka Ports Authority Prasantha Jayamanna has recently announced it at a discussion in Colombo.”

He briefed Bangladesh about the present facilities as well as ongoing and future expansion plan of Colombo Port which would increase their container handling capacity to 15 million TEUs once completed in 2025-26.

The message from the mission said “Bangladesh High Commission has been pursuing this priority berthing issue with SLPA for long.”

By Farzana Tamannur (TON Bangladesh)

Girls as young as 13 are being trafficked from the Bangladesh border to India's Hyderabad several of whom are promised works as masseurs, beauticians, and professional dancers.

With the help of a web of traffickers, whose network spans manifold nations, these girls are illegitimately brought across global borders with the promise of a better life, reports Indian boarder security and a Chronicle.

That symbolizes the seedy underbelly of Indian cities along with the license with which these networks across international borders. Once tangled in the tentacles of the traffickers, these girls are fascinated in a life they would never selected.

The report adds quoting Indian law enforcers that the girls are mostly taken to Kolkata from the Bangladesh border and then sent to diverse places including Karnataka and Telangana. In several such trafficking cases, they are shipped straight to Mumbai.

The traffickers organize identity papers for the girls, including Aadhaar cards plus passports, after arriving India.

Once inside, the girls are offered for sale to traffickers for amounts ranging from Rs.5, 000 to Rs.50, 000. In some cases, it was said, the victims' own family members sold them to traffickers.

In certain cases, the girls are pushed into the thriving IVF business. Sources said they are forced to sell their eggs to fertility centers for Rs.25, 000 each.

Sources said that some women who recognize as victims might actually be traffickers themselves; they do this to avoid arrest and land up in government-run shelters. At the rescue homes, they try to persuade the others to return to commercial sex work by offering more cash. They are supported by their brokers, who are on stand-by with legitimate support, and secure the release of the victims as soon as they are arrested by the police.

Fate of trafficked victims

According to a BSF study, a certain Indian organization buys young girls and women, generally as prostitutes for brothels and hotels. They are also sold to massage parlors, dance bars, and hired as domestic workers.

Trafficked women are also enforced into marriage, used as unskilled or semi-skilled laborers.

The study also discloses most victims are trafficked from Jashore plus Satkhira to Gojadanga and Hakimpur in Bangladesh. The border here is totally unfenced and the population near the zero line is rare, making it easier for traffickers to bring people into India.

Around 84% of these traffickers are male, however the other 16% are female.

The human trafficking from Bangladesh to India has reached an acute point, where the system works straight on the principle of supply and demand, over a well-managed mechanism of traffickers working on both sides of the border, with the first link in the chain being Dhaka.

Untold tales

Several Bangladeshi victims of trafficking are waiting in India for their deportation.The shelter home in Narendrapur is home to more than 150 girls who are minors rescued from prostitution, children of sex workers plus vulnerable girls rescued from sexual abuse.

This correspondent visited the safe home on an afternoon, and found the girls were keenly waiting for updates about their return.

The untold stories of these girls unfolded one by one.

Betrayed by own family

Two sisters from Dhaka’s Jatrabari area disclosed how they ended up in the safe home.

The older sister said: “We did not know we were being trafficked into India back in 2013. Our own aunt told us that we would be working at a jeans factory.”

The older sister is documented as 18 years old, and her sister is two years younger than her.

Dancing queen

Another girl shared her story of being deceived. “I am presently sixteen, but I was only 12 when I was trafficked to Mumbai, India. One of my friends from my dance school introduced me to a man. He told me he would help me get work in the glamour industry,” said the dance loving girl.

She was rescued from Dongri, Mumbai’s underworld belly.

Leaving the room in a hurry, she told this correspondent she did not want to talk about it any longer.

Sold to the highest bidder

Rubina, a domestic worker from Chittagong, was sold at a red light district of West Bengal six years ago. Presently a mother of three, she was very young while she got married.

The woman, currently around 22 years old, had left her two young kids with her relatives in Ramu, Cox’s Bazar, and moved to Jashore with her employer.

“I started working as a domestic worker afterward my husband married another woman. My employer took me to Jashore with her, and then sold me for Tk120, 000 in the Haldia area of India, wherever I spent five years forced into prostitution,” she told this correspondent.

“My father is sick. I am not capable to talk to my father. I want to go back to my family,” she added.

Rupali, a 17 year old from Postogola, Dhaka shared a similar story of betrayal. She was sold by her boyfriend for Tk300, 000.

Explaining how she ended up in a safe home, Rupali said: “My boyfriend told me he is taking me to a good place. One of his friends took me to India as well as sold me as a sex worker.

“I was too underage at that time, so my possessors wanted to sell me in Mumbai. When I heard that, I ran away and surrendered to the police.” 

The young girl has lived in two diverse shelters in India for the previous four years, and she wants to go home.

Conclusion

There is a gleam of hope for these girls in the rescue center in Hyderabad. In order to help these victims support themselves both while they are in the center and after their release, they obtain life skills training, participate in the production of several types of jute bags, tie-and-dye cotton sarees, bangles, bead bags, and more.

Also, they engage in activities like gardening, dance, and painting. They have a counsellor there at the center to help them survive from the trauma.

By Maynak R Mittal (TON Bangladesh)

The Digital Security Act is in offing to restrict independence of media in Bangladesh. The media in Bangladesh is under pressure, and its function heavily hindered by the Digital Security Act (DSA), a new law which is now on the anvil o the Bangladesh Press Council (BPC). The draft law imposing a 10 lakh fine for participating in "unlawful deeds."

Apparently, the idea has been in the works since 2016, and the 1974 law has to be amended to fit in an oppressive provision. For good reasons, not all members of the BPC are in accord with the suggested amendments. From reports in the print media, it appears that the draft was framed and the action was taken in a secretive manner.

Some of the members were not aware of the suggestion, and the essential procedures, they feel, had not been followed before placing such a proposal to the Cabinet. Certainly, the journalist community had not been asked either as a group or as members of the Council to express their opinions in this regard.

The suggested punishing provisions would restrict the liberty of the press. The crucial clause of the provision is vague and lends itself to clarification by the organizations intricate in the procedure of law and order. There are also prevailing laws that lay down movements against anyone involved in "illegal activities".

The need of a separate law to govern journalists created very ambiguities in heart and minds of independent journalists which are being left at the mercy of administration and its agencies. The possibility of interpreting the law may easily be misused at the hand of officials. The DSA is a fit case in in this regard. The nastiest victims of this very awful lawmaking are the independent and impartial journalists.

The law can be easily applied against the journalists on the pretext that it is harming the state to restrict their free reporting of extrajudicial killings and gross monetary irregularity or corruption in high places. It is totally against the spirit and soul of freedom of press and will certainly tarnish the image of the country.

In fact, is not only harmful to the image of the country, keeping it from public domain is patently anti-state. After all, corruption, or abridgments of the right to life not only abnegates the country's constitution, it puts the country's interest at stake too.

There is a number of laws, namely, the Code of Criminal Procedure (CRPC), the DSA, the draft Data Protection Act, and the draft Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission Regulation for Digital, Social Media and OTT Platforms (draft BTRC regulations).

There is question that why should a government which claims to be duly elected government and assertions to have the support of the majority, is so keen to restrict and limit the free media in Bangladesh. It seems that the proposed law is designed to sort out "errant" journalists or those who do not fall in line the government desire.

There is for good reason that the press was dubbed as the "fourth estate and it has become a metaphor for the power of the media that empowers it to hold the government and the political party, which the people have chosen by free will to run their affairs. In Bangladeshi the DSA proposed law will be a sword of Damocles.

Certainly, every institution must be guided by some rules and follow certain principles of functioning. But the administration, instead of being an enabler of free flow of information for public good, should not become a hinderer.

The amendment to the existing law would also need another amendment, since the proposed punishment and the 1974 Act does not contain any retaliatory clause, and would alter the very fundamental purpose of the Act.

It would be convenient for a Bangladesh government to establish a Press Council for the purpose of preserving the freedom of the Press and maintaining and improving the standard of newspapers and news agencies in Bangladesh and not for suppressing it in a bid to boost up the objective to help newspapers and news agencies to maintain their freedom.

WASHINGTON, 01 July 2022, (TON): State Department spokesperson said “Indirect talks in Qatar’s capital between Iran and the US on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal have concluded with no progress made.”

The negotiations in Doha were an attempt to reboot long-running European Union-mediated talks on a return to the 2015 agreement between Tehran and world powers.

No time limit was previously announced on the most-recent negotiations, which had been taking place in a Doha hotel with special envoy Robert Malley heading the US delegation.

But a US State Department spokesperson said the “indirect discussions in Doha have concluded”.

The spokesperson told “while we are very grateful to the EU for its efforts, we are disappointed that Iran has, yet again, failed to respond positively to the EU’s initiative and therefore that no progress was made.”

LAS VEGAS, 01 July 2022, (TON): Children set out hoping to earn enough to support their siblings and parents. Young adults who sacrificed to attend college thinking it would lead to success left their country disillusioned.

A man already working in the U.S. who returned to visit his wife and children decided to take a cousin on his return to the U.S.

As families of the more than 60 people packed into a tractor-trailer and abandoned in Texas began to confirm their worst fears and talk of their relatives, a common narrative of pursuing a better life took shape from Honduras to Mexico.

Fifty-three of those migrants left in the sweltering heat on the outskirts of San Antonio had died as of Wednesday, while others remained hospitalized.

The tedious process of identifications continues, but families are confirming their losses.

MADRID, 01 July 2022, (TON): The Latest on the final day of the NATO summit in Madrid “Turkey’s president is hailing his country’s joint memorandum with Sweden and Finland over their NATO accession as a victory.”

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “all of Turkey’s sensitivities had been included in the 10-article agreement.”

The deal signed Tuesday removed Turkey’s objection to the Nordic countries’ NATO membership.

But Erdogan added that if Sweden and Finland did not fulfill their promises, Turkey could still block their membership by not ratifying the deal in the Turkish parliament.

Erdogan claimed after the NATO summit ended that Sweden had promised to extradite 73 terrorists to Turkey and crack down on the financing and recruitment activities of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and its extensions.

LAS VEGAS, 01 July 2022, (TON): Children set out hoping to earn enough to support their siblings and parents. Young adults who sacrificed to attend college thinking it would lead to success left their country disillusioned.

A man already working in the U.S. who returned to visit his wife and children decided to take a cousin on his return to the U.S.

As families of the more than 60 people packed into a tractor-trailer and abandoned in Texas began to confirm their worst fears and talk of their relatives, a common narrative of pursuing a better life took shape from Honduras to Mexico.

Fifty-three of those migrants left in the sweltering heat on the outskirts of San Antonio had died as of Wednesday, while others remained hospitalized.

The tedious process of identifications continues, but families are confirming their losses.

WASHINGTON, 01 July 2022, (TON): The US Supreme Court gave a major boost to President Joe Biden’s drive to end a hard-line immigration policy begun under his predecessor Donald Trump that forced tens of thousands of migrants to stay in Mexico to await US hearings on their asylum claims.

The justices, in a 5-4 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, overturned a lower court’s decision requiring Biden to restart Trump’s remain in Mexico policy after the Republican-led states of Texas and Missouri sued to maintain the program.

The ruling bolsters Biden as he pursues what he calls a more humane approach at the southern border even as Republicans blame him for what they portray as an immigration crisis.

The justices concluded that the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals erred in finding that federal immigration law required sending migrants back to Mexico so long as there was not enough space to detain them in the United States.