Legislation relative to people-trafficking is outdated and needs revision and there will be resource implications if we are not to find ourselves, once again, as an international pariah. PHOTO: AFP
Human trafficking is a global business with by-country local franchises and variations in content and purpose. In America, there is what the FBI is describing as an “epidemic” of children being trafficked and sold for sex. Adults are bought and sold for the same purpose too. Poverty and desperation drive some of the victims as they see no other choices in their lives. European law-enforcement agencies also report a sharp rise in the numbers of children engaged in prostitution. In the Philippines, there are entire neighbourhoods where families collectively use the internet to sell their children to online paedophiles. The common image of people trafficking is that it is a border-crossing experience. However, millions are trafficked within their home country, with Pakistan being no exception.
Once again, the US State Department has placed Pakistan on the Tier Two Watch List because Pakistan does not fully comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Tier two countries are those where the numbers of people trafficked is significant or significantly increasing. A combination of ineffective law enforcement, complicity at an official level and the penalisation of victims rather than perpetrators, are all combined here. Government officials continue to conflate the figures for migrant smuggling and human trafficking, making the compilation of accurate data difficult. The local trafficking franchise is dominated by bonded labour, which mostly occurs in brick kilns and the agriculture sector, but also fisheries, carpet-making and mining. Women and girls from Afghanistan, China, Russia and Nepal are trafficked into Pakistan to serve the sex industry. The US State Department report on trafficking recommends the passing of anti-trafficking laws, which we strongly support. But with the parlous state of law enforcement and a lethargic parliament that would be slow in enabling the country to tackle the trafficking problem, we are not hopeful of an early improvement in this lamentable state of affairs.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 31st, 2015.
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