The bench was hearing a suo motu case about the use of children as jockeys in Gulf countries. Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had taken a suo motu notice on an application demanding that the United Arab Emirates pay 1.4 million dollars in damages for illegal smuggling and use of Pakistani children.
The FIA reported that the court had acquitted all the culprits arrested in the case so far. In the last hearing, the Supreme Court had ordered the interior secretary to submit a comprehensive report about the trafficking of child jockeys, noting that the selling of three- to four- year-old Pakistani children for hundreds of dollars was an insult to the nation.
According to estimates, 12,000 Pakistani children have been smuggled to the Middle East. The practice of smuggling children from Pakistan began in 1979, according to a HRCP report.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 7th, 2010.
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