Campaign against child trafficking launched

The Body Shop launches 'Stop The Trafficking of Children & Young People' campaign today.

ISLAMABAD: The Body Shop launches 'Stop The Trafficking of Children & Young People' campaign on Monday.

Collected funds would be used to help the most vulnerable children such as the ones in emergency situations, displaced children and children in refugee camps, children without birth registration, or without parental care.

The brand has appealed the concerned Pakistanis to show their solidarity against the trafficking of children by visiting their local stores to sign 'The Stop Trafficking Petition'. To further support the campaign all the proceeds of The Body Shop's 'Soft Hands Kind Heart Hand Cream' will go directly to the funds allocated for the overall stop child trafficking campaign in Pakistan.

Through this campaign in Pakistan, The Body Shop wants to elaborate that a comprehensive legal reform is urgently needed to combat the trafficking in children and other forms of sexual exploitation of children as the legislation still presents gaps in terms of adequately protecting children from a child rights-based approach.

The Body Shop and its partner NGOs have launched this petition which will be presented to the Pakistan Government, urging it to strengthen legislation and protection measures. A signed petition of the campaign will be sent to the legislators to expedite adoption of the 'Child Protection Bill' which is before the Parliament.

Pakistan faces trafficking problem

Pakistan is a significant source, destination, and transit country for women, and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Pakistan faces a considerable internal trafficking problem reportedly involving thousands of women and children trafficked to settle debts and disputes, or forced into sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

The main objective of this campaign is to ensure that community-based prevention programmes are reaching at-risk populations to stop trafficking of children and young people; to ensure that international legal standards for protecting children and young people from trafficking have been incorporated in the national legal framework policies; that specialised government services for children and young people who are victims of trafficking are integrated in national policies.