Trafficked sex workers: FIA chief ordered to supervise case

Sisters forced into prostitution in Dubai, request court for speedy investigation.

ISLAMABAD:

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday ordered the chief of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to supervise the investigation in to a complaint filed on behalf of two sisters forced into the prostitution.

Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui directed the FIA director general to investigate the case of two sisters from Faisalabad who were taken to Dubai by human traffickers and disposed of the case.

The sisters’ counsel Advocate Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta contended that Muhammad Ashfaq offered his housemaids Zunaira and Shaista jobs at his beauty parlor in Dubai, UAE, which they accepted. Ashfaq then arranged Zunaira and Shaista’s travel documents and took them to Dubai. However, on arrival, he forced them to become sex workers. After they initially refused, the accused threatened them with dire consequences. When they continued protesting, they were beaten.

Ashfaq runs brothels and supplies women to hotels in Dubai, according to the sisters.

Advocate Bhutta informed the court that once the girls arrived in Pakistan, they refused to go back to Dubai, which provoked Ashfaq and his accomplices to attack them, injuring Zunaira in the process. He informed the court that in June this year, the Ghulam Muhammadabad police in Faisalabad registered a first information report (FIR) against the accused, but the victims’ family compromised with Ashfaq under pressure in return for Rs800,000.

The accused started threatening the sisters again, forcing them to take shelter at the Sonia Naz Human Rights Organisation Centre in Faisalabad. The organisation’s chairperson, Sonia Naz lodged a human trafficking complaint with the FIA, but the agency was proceeding at snail’s pace, according to the counsel.

Bhutta had filed a petition on behalf of the sisters to request that the court direct the FIA chief to supervise the investigation so it was transparently completed at the earliest.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2013.