Human trafficking in Pakistan
Sadaf Siddique
Thousands of men and women are trafficked in Pakistan every year. Government of Pakistan shown significant improvement over years. Before 2018, we don’t have any law on trafficking but in 2018 with the efforts of united nations Office on Drugs & Crime (UNODC)’ Pakistan was able to enact law against trafficking. Pakistan was on tier 3, initially but now Pakistan is upgraded to tier2 on watch list. (tier 2: Countries whose governments do not fully meet the TVPA’s minimum standards but making efforts to meet those standards).
According to report, Pakistan is the source and destination country for men, Women and children for forced labor and sex trafficking. Some of the women and men are voluntarily move to Europe and gulf states for low skilled employment and forced labor and Some become victim of trafficking.
Common trafficking method includes romantic relationships, online ads and recruitment for false job. Trafficker build a relationship with the victim and once the life of individual in his control, traffickers sale them or engage them in commercial sex .often times traffickers creates a false job advertisement with opportunities that seems too good, these job tempt people because they don’t need much job experience and at the same time they offer housing and visa or travel procurement and they pay extremely well.
Best way to prevent from these frauds is to take necessary precaution when leaving for abroad or accepting a job in a same country or signing a contract.
Another worst face of trafficking is organ harvesting. In Pakistan illegal organ trade is at its peak. Organ transplantation is a medical procedure in which organ is removed from individual and placed it in a body of recipients. transplanted organs include heart, kidney liver, lungs, pancreases and intestine. The most common in all is kidney transplantation.
Most brutal face of trafficking is; trafficking for suicide bombing’. Few months ago Afghan police has arrested human traffickers and they say that they kidnapped and smuggled 25 children during security operation in the province of Ghazni near border of Afghanistan, to send them for training as suicide bombers for Taliban.
In rare case, unbelievable level of poverty and debt compel families to sell their children to traffickers, it’s a pressure on their children to make their problems less severe and bring some money to the family.
A significant concern is that police is not enough supporting to decrease trafficking in Pakistan. sometimes, when bounded labor struggle to escape or find ways to escape police deny reporting a file against trafficker and in worst cases, police bring them back to traffickers. Reports indicated that police take bribes from prostitutes and their pimps to retain their activity in certain area. Police acted against trafficking and prostitution when pressurized by the media and activist groups.
Some federal lord associated with political parties or they have connection with so called political parties, so they used their influence to protect their involvement in bonded labors or activities related to human trafficking.
There are 40 million victims of human trafficking globally as per report of international global organization.
There is no single profile for trafficking victim. Trafficking occurs in rural, suburban or urban communities across the country with adults and minors. Victims of human trafficking are from different backgrounds. Runaway and homeless are vulnerable to trafficking. A research shows that 56 percent of prostituted women were runaway youth initially. Traffickers approach runaway youth at transportation hubs, shelters or other public spaces. In Pakistan ,4518 victims are trafficked from different cities in 2018.
Victims of human trafficking can experience damaging psychological effect during and after their trafficking experience. Many survivors may end up with memory loss, anxiety, guilt, shame and other severe form of mental trauma. Victims who have been sexually exploited are often abused by their traffickers and their customers. They may be raped, beaten up and subjected to emotionally and mentally abuse for the long period of time. There is also higher risk of sexually transmitted disease, infections, cancer and other illness. A lack of medical care may lead these conditions to spread and worsen.
Victims of force labor are working in dangerous condition and for long hours doing repetitive task. Working with heavy equipment and exposed to dangerous contaminants may cause them serious infections, injuries, impartment, exhaustion, and respiratory problem.
Victims who escape or return home may excluded from social group and may be rejected by their family and friends and feel unwanted and unloved. this isolation can make them exposed to possibility of trafficked again.
How to stop Human Trafficking?
-Give training to the people and profession who interact with young people and target variety of setting e.g. rural tribal land and states.
-Different sectors like health care. Law enforcement and support services should actively participate in implementation and evaluation of training that use evidence base method.
Lack of public awareness is a barrier to sex trafficking of minors and adults.
-Survivors of sexual trafficking and sexual exploitation may treated as victim not as criminals, and its responsible of every individual to help them in transition their personalities.
One of the significant barrier to identifying and responding to sexual trafficking is lack of reliable and timely information. If this happened properly, it will help in recover victims
-Donate money to the organization who work in front line.
Human trafficking continues to grow in miraculous numbers around the world. The effect of this injustice impacting the individual who are involved and their communities and generation that follow. Sustainable change is happened only if survivors of victim is rescued and those who are involved in this immoral act can be arrested. The more dangerous human trafficking becomes, the less likely traffickers will continue exploiting others.s
