Imphal, October 05 2010: Concerned over the rising trend of human trafficking, specially kids from the remote tribal villages on false promises of providing better education facilities, a consultation meet on the matter was held here yesterday under the joint aegis of All Manipur Christian Organization (AMCO) and El Shaddai, an NGO.

The meeting comes close on the heels of the strong apprehension aired from some quarters, especially Impulse NGO, that thousands of girls from the North East may have been lured to Delhi on the pretext of providing good jobs, but end up being pushed into the flesh trade, during the Common Wealth Games.

Some agencies have even put the approximate number of girls lured from the region at around 40,000 .

Meghalaya has already held a high level Governmental talks on the measures needed to check frauds and cheats, who lure girls under false promises of providing them respectable jobs and then force them into the prostitution ring.

North East girls are in demand in the flesh market, as they are fair and generally speak English, said Hasina Kharbih, the founder of Impulse NGO, sometime back while talking to the media.

Speaking to The Sangai Express, president of AMCO Rev Prim Vaiphei said that since some selfstyled Church functionaries have been found to be involved in such human trafficking cases, AMCO and El Shaddai took the initiative of organising the meet which brought together over one hundred pastors from across the State for a thorough discussion on the issue.

The Church bodies' initiative has come barely twenty-five days after Social Welfare Department, Government of Manipur announced its plan to conduct a house-to-house survey with the help of Anganwadi workers to compile a data on the number of trafficked children in the State.

Earlier, the Social Welfare Department had issued a notification asking all concerned to obtain prior approval of the Department as well as the Child Welfare Committees concerned, if children were to be taken outside the State for one reason or another.

Though there is no specific data on how many children have been illegally taken from Manipur to other States and countries, officials of Social Welfare Department have managed to rescue 273 trafficked children between October 2008 and August this year with the help and support of child activists.

Most of the children have been rescued from unauthorized homes in Chennai and other South Indian States.

These homes were found to be lacking basic amenities including food, clothing and study materials.

Vaiphei further informed that during the consultation meeting, it came to light that some pastors, who were involved in illegal transfer of children, have also been victimized by the respective children homes as they simply conveyed the message given by such homes to the ignorant parents.

"As everyone knows, Pastors are trusted by all Christians and when they promise to do any good work, the parents and guardians straightaway entrust their children/wards to them.

And when the kids reach the destination, the unwanted incidents happen without the knowledge of the pastors concerned," the AMCO president said.

"But a few self-styled pastors may have done the work knowingly for their own personal benefits and we are trying to expose them," Vaiphei said, adding he had personally visited some children homes in south Indian States including Tamil Nadu.

He informed that AMCO along with child activists and Government officials will convene another consultation cum awareness meeting to work out effective ways and means of stopping human trafficking.

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