On Friday night, FIA teams raided Drigh Road, Shah Faisal Colony and Korangi and arrested Waseem Mirza, Zahid Ali and Imran.
One day earlier, the FIA immigration staff had offloaded eight men from a flight to Muscat after suspicions developed over their visas and their ‘protectors’. A protector is a person who gives the government of Pakistan a guaranttee for the person who has received an employment visa.
The eight men gave certain names to the immigration staff who handed the case over with an inquiry report to the anti-human trafficking cell of the FIA. Upon further questioning, the group revealed that they had paid between Rs150,000 and Rs250,000 to some men for visas and jobs at dairy farms in Oman.
They identified Waseem Mirza as having a student visa consultancy business by the name of Acma in Gulshan-e-Iqbal. When Waseem was arrested, he told investigators that he had helped the group get visas with the help of Zahid and Imran.
In order to help people get jobs overseas, a person has to have a license issued from the Overseas Employment Corporation of the government of Pakistan. However, investigations revealed that Waseem did not have any such license and the ‘protectors’ in Lahore were fake.
“We’ve started a crackdown on human smuggling,” said Asif Aijaz Shaikh, who is the additional director of the anti-human smuggling circle of the FIA. “Since last month we have caught six human smugglers.” The cell has formed four teams to tackle the crime. One of the recent big busts was Ahsan Bengali who was wanted for many years. The anti-human smuggling circle is now focusing on big fish from the Red Book.
According to the Bureau of International Information Programs of the US Department of State, Pakistan’s ranking as a Tier 2 country in the 2010 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report is an improvement over its 2009 rating, when it was listed as a Tier 2 watch list country. The annual report, required by the US Congress, ranks 177 nations by tiers to measure the extent to which each government adheres to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. A Tier 2 ranking means a government is “making significant efforts” to comply with the anti-trafficking law’s minimum standards but does not yet meet those standards.
Of the 12 South and Central Asia nations ranked in the 2010 report, Pakistan was the only one to improve on its ranking. In 2010, Nepal and Kyrgyzstan are ranked as Tier 2 nations, as they were in 2009. Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are ranked as Tier 2 watch list, the same as in 2009. Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and the Maldives all ranked on the Tier 2 watch list in 2010, down from their Tier 2 rankings in 2009.
During 2009, Pakistan endeavoured to prosecute individuals charged with human trafficking, the TIP report said. According to the report, 385 people were convicted in 2009 under the Prevention and Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance, compared to just 28 in 2008. Another 166 were convicted under various other laws associated with human trafficking. At least three of those convicted were guilty of child trafficking, with the rest guilty of either labour or sex trafficking. In addition, the report said more than 150 Pakistani officials were penalised for facilitating or “participating in illegal migration and human smuggling.”
“The Government of Pakistan made some progress in its efforts to protect victims of human trafficking,” the report said. During 2009, local police successfully freed more than 2,000 bonded labourers in Sindh province, and Pakistan’s federal government succeeded in providing legal aid and development assistance, including land, housing, money and agricultural assistance, to bonded labourers from the provinces of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Balochistan and Sindh. More than 1,000 children who had been trafficked to the United Arab Emirates were also successfully repatriated, the report said.
Pakistan also received mention for its efforts at preventing human trafficking, including the Punjab government’s Elimination of Bonded Labour in Brick Kilns project, which collectively spent millions of dollars to issue Computerised National Identification Cards, provide loans so labourers could get out of debt, and establish schools onsite at brick kilns. Pakistan has also invested in training its police and military officials in the most effective ways to combat human trafficking, the report said.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 19th, 2010.
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