|
Pakistan: IOM developing strategy to counter human trafficking
November 25, 2004
Islamabad - The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) held a one-day
seminar in the northwestern city of Peshawar this week, as part of a series of
meetings across the country to help develop a national strategy to combat human
trafficking.
"It is to raise awareness about the phenomenon of trafficking. Pakistan has
different aspects of the issue - specific to different areas - this is why we
need to receive input from stakeholders from all over the country to formulate
a national counter-trafficking mechanism," Richard Dazinger, regional
representative of the IOM office for West and Central Asia, told IRIN in
Peshawar, capital of Northwestern Frontier Province (NWFP).
The seminars are being organised in the federal and provincial capitals under
IOM's ongoing project, entitled: "Development of a Conceptual Framework and
Strategies to Combat Traficking." The two-year programme, comprising
stakeholders from the governmental, intergovernmental and nongovernmental
sectors, is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
Trafficking is largely the work of organised crime networks, often conducted by
the same people involved in the smuggling of drugs and weapons, Dazinger told
delegates. "And therefore, we are looking at two issues, - basic rights of
human beings, of women and children, and then there are security issues as
well," he said.
Dazinger also noted that there were different categories of vulnerable groups
and that preventive measures to combat trafficking should not focus on just one
vulnerable group.
Pakistan is a country of source, transit and transmission of women and children
trafficked for sexual exploitation and bonded labour. While there are no exact
figures regarding the trafficked people, the issue remains a source of concern
for both governmental and nongovernmental bodies.
"Nepalese, Bangladeshi, Burmese and Afghan women are brought into Pakistan
through different borders and then trafficked to Gulf and other states,"
Rakhshanda Naz, resident director of women's rights organisation Aurat
Foundation, told IRIN.
Internal trafficking is also affecting Pakistan. Human rights activists said
that the state agencies consider custom and tradition - at the root of much
internal trafficking - as internal matters of families and generally do not
intervene. But the women are being sold as commodities under customary
practices, say the rights activists.
The government has taken several legislative and administrative measures
recently to deal with the problem. In 2002, the federal government introduced
the Human Trafficking Law, proposing imprisonment for human traffickers and
compensation to victims.
"Under the law, 649 cases of trafficking have been registered so far and 521
people have been arrested. While 257 cases out of the 649 have been sent to
court, there have been 22 convictions," Fida Hussain Afridi, provincial
additional secretary, home and tribal affairs department of northwestern
Frontier province (NWFP), told in the seminar.
Afridi called on developed countries to look into the issue on humanitarian
grounds and help to work out a way to facilitate the "economic migrants".
"Several young people [take] the services of traffickers in search of better
employment, the developed world should try to help such people, who are
sometimes deprived of their fundamental human rights, left in jails [to] face
miserable conditions."
Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) and machine-readable passports
have been introduced recently to check the menace of human smuggling and
trafficking. Moreover, a Personal Identification Secure Comparison and
Evaluation System (PISCES) has also been put in place at nine ports in the
country to prevent document fraud and to prepare a database of people coming in
and out.
IOM is running several other counter-trafficking projects in Pakistan,
including the training of law enforcement agencies and the establishment of a
model shelter for the protection of victims of trafficking.
The migration agency has also conducted a national survey to assess the human
trafficking situation, which will be released in January next year.
Comment on this story,
click here.
Copyright 1999-2004, IRIN. All rights reserved. No content may be
reproduced in whole or part without written permission. Please contact us
via the link below for re-print and syndication policies.
|
|
Rewards
for human trafficking high: seminar
11-24-2004
Pakistan:
New machine-readable passport could reduce human trafficking
11-11-2004
|
