Kolkata (West Bengal): The West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights (WBCPCR) has decided to set up a new cell for better coordination with the administration to rehabilitate victims trafficked and rescued during the COVID-19 outbreak, its chairperson said on Saturday.
The new cell comprising representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) will work towards alleviating mental agony of the rescued victims and rehabilitating them in the post-COVID world, WBCPCR chairperson Ananya Chakraborty said.
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"The cell will focus on addressing the problems faced by the victims during the present situation as they are much stressed now, besides thinking of their future," she said.
It will work alongside the helpline number launched by the WBCPCR in June to register complaints and queries by victims of child trafficking and marriage, Chakraborty said.
"We provide support to the administration by helping them identify vulnerable groups by networking with NGOs. We are a support group," she said.
Chakraborty, however, clarified the decision in this regard was not taken in the wake of the Centre issuing an advisory on July 6 asking states to evolve a coordination mechanism among departments to prevent child trafficking, besides conducting awareness drives on the issue of missing children and working with local bodies to trace and recover victims.
She said the commission had constituted a similar task force earlier and those have achieved success in preventing trafficking.
"We have achieved a high level of success in tracing and recovering trafficked women and children with the help of local bodies. WBCPCR has been conducting community awareness programmes on the issue of missing children during the pre-COVID days as well as now," Chakraborty said.
At least 22 cases of child marriage were registered at the commission's help desk in June, another WBCPCR official said.
The commission recorded 141 cases of child marriage in the state between March 20 and April 14 during the early stages of the lockdown, as per data shared by NGO Childline that works in synergy with WBCPCR to stop the practice, she said.
Although 357 cases of attempted child marriage were reported between April 15 and May-end, almost 90 per cent of those could be prevented, the official said.
The economic distress caused in the wake of Cyclone Amphan has given rise to attempts of trafficking girls to outside the state by promising them jobs or luring them with marriage proposals but most of those attempts were thwarted by the panel, she added.
(PTI report)
