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Rewards for human trafficking high: seminar
November 24, 2004
Peshawar - Speakers at a human trafficking seminar on Tuesday said it had
become one of most lucrative businesses in the world alongside the trafficking
of drugs and guns.
The seminar was organised by a thematic group designed to create awareness of
the issue and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Speakers said
human traffickers were executing their illegal business with the help of law
enforcement agencies, adding it was the state that allowed them to escape from
being accountable before a court of law.
Speakers stressed on the need to create awareness of the problem and urged for
the implementation of laws to combat the threat. Human trafficking was a very
important issue and was creating a negative image of Pakistan, they said. They
said the crime was not only a fundamental violation of human rights, of whom
the majority affected were women and children, but also breached moral and
ethical standards.
Informing the participants about government initiatives to tackle the problem,
Fida Husain Afridi, the NWFP home department additional secretary, said a
provincial human rights committee had been set to address key issues. He said
most poverty stricken people had left the country in large numbers to seek a
better future abroad, adding that developed countries should facilitate
employment opportunities to stem illegal migration.
He said laws existed to prevent human trafficking and added that according to a
human trafficking ordinance promulgated in 2002, 649 cases of trafficking had
been registered and 521 people had been arrested. He said that 257 cases out of
the 649 had been sent to court out of which 22 were convicted.
He said the implementation of the Immigration and Passport Act had resulted in
2,827 people being arrested and 1,209 people being sent to court trials, of
which 510 people were convicted. He said the Personal Identification Secure
Comparison and Evaluation System (PISCES) was functioning at nine ports to stop
trafficking.
Sharmeela Ahmed, the IOM project co-ordinator, informed the participants of
various types of human trafficking and smuggling. She said that according to
the protocols supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational
Organised Crime, trafficking was the recruitment, transportation, transfer,
harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of a threat or use of force and
coercion.
She said the abuse of power and the receipt of payment or benefit in
controlling another person, for the purpose of exploitation, was also a form of
human trafficking.
Miss Ahmed said tackling human trafficking in Pakistan required a collective
effort by relevant parties to clarify and understand key concepts.
Representatives of IOM said the thematic group, which had helped organise the
seminar, had been formed to reduce human trafficking and build alliances
between the government, civil society and other organisations to tackle the
problem.
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