Showing empathy can win trafficking victims' trust: DGP

Hyderabad: Director General of Police (DGP) M Mahendar Reddy on Wednesday inaugurated the one-day State-level conference on anti-human trafficking at MCRHRD in Hyderabad.

Delivering a keynote address at the conference, the DGP said commercial human traffickers are sexually exploiting girls, women and children from poor financial background in the name of helping them and pressurising them to indulge in organised prostitution.

To make Telangana free from human trafficking, all stakeholders should take it as a common responsibility to eradicate the menace from the grass-root level. DGP advised the investigating officers of human trafficking cases to change their body language towards the victims of prostitution while doing the raids and rescuing them while arresting the human traffickers.

"By showing sensitivity and empathy towards the victims of human trafficking, police can win the trust of them and would get evidences and background of traffickers. Further, victims can be rehabilitated in a better way," he stated.

When the police know about the changing trends in the modus operandi of organised human traffickers then they will know the essential knowledge to trap them and convict them, DGP added.

He gave a call to the police officials to focus on the illegal properties accumulated by the organised human traffickers and by collecting the complete data of their investments and evidences of their properties, police can able to seize their properties legally.

He said by detaining the repeated offenders under PD Act, and by proper investigation with the strict follow up of procedures, the human traffickers will be convicted. The top cop opined when the financial background of them destroyed with conviction, the human traffickers fear to involve them in the offence again. Later, he released a booklet containing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to follow during the investigation of human trafficking cases.

IGP Law and Order and incharge of Women Safety Wing, Swathi Lakra said till now more than 32,000 children were rescued across the State through Operation Muskaan and Operation Smile. Dr Sunitha Krishnan, Prajwala, representatives from different NGOs and police officials from different districts across the State participated in the inaugural session.