While loud proclamations are made of the sanctity of human rights and the dignity of human beings, flesh-trade remains widely rampant, which is indeed a negation of all the pious declarations of development and equality. With the recent re-emergence of organized worldwide syndicates, human beings in general, and women and children in particular, are bought and sold to cater to a variety of needs: sex slavery, prostitution, legal and illegal labour and marriages, bonded labour, camel jockeys, baby farms, adoption and entertainment. In addition to this, some incidences of organ trade have also been reported, especially from India.
In the context of Pakistan, the problem of human trade and trafficking is multidimensional in nature, which needs to be addressed on various fronts. During the past decade, human smuggling and trafficking across national borders has grown from a low-level border crossing activity in a handful of countries to a diverse multibillion-dollar business spanning the entire globe. Pakistan is the destination point for those being trafficked in from Bangladesh, Burma, Afghanistan and Central Asia; secondly, a transit point for those brought in from Far East Asia and Bangladesh to be taken elsewhere; and additionally, it is a recruiting ground for those who are internally (inter-provincially) trafficked, or sent to Afghanistan and the Gulf.
The victims of trafficking are either lured by better job prospects or kidnapped against their wishes. In some cases, women and children are sold by their parents, guardians and husbands. Sometimes girls are sold after fake marriages or deceived into illegal cross-border migration. Marriage is often used as a method of recruitment for trafficking and to avoid arrest under Pakistan’s Zina Law, which criminalises sex outside marriage. Besides external trafficking, this lucrative business of sale and purchase of women is the bearer of many trends and practices within Pakistan. Internally, women are sold in the name of customs, traditions and honour to take revenge of old enmity, for sexual pleasures and exploitation and to make money. Ironically, cases of this nature mostly occur in areas under feudal control such as the southern Punjab and interior Sindh.
Another aspect of the flesh trade is the horrendous crime of children trafficking. Despite being a regular criminal activity, which requires elaborate international and domestic networking, the trade of children is still a thriving business in Southern Punjab preferably Rahimyar Khan or the interior of Sindh from where children, less than seven years of age and weighing between 15 to 17 kilograms, are trafficked as camel jockeys to take part in the Gulf State’s popular camel race.
The slave camps are referred to be a big source of children trafficking in Pakistan. In addition, the slave-dealers abduct young girls from all over Pakistan, as they are strongly interlinked with organised gangs even at regional level. The girls are sold to Arabs and they pick them via helicopters directly from slave-camps. District Dera Ghazi Khan witnessed a lot of abduction cases, especially of girl-children.
Traffickers, recruiters and agents have clear links with politicians and influential people in the trade, as well as with various institutions such as police, customs, border forces, overseas recruiters, travel agents, transport agents, religious institutions, hospitals and clinics, adoption agencies and baby-farms. It must be continually emphasized that they - and not the victims - should bear the brunt of legislation and penal action.
A couple of years back, the US government also conveyed its reservations over the involvement of Pakistani officials in human smuggling and trafficking, demanding the removal of corrupt officials from Pakistani government departments dealing with human smuggling cases. In the recent past, more than 80 FIA officials were investigated with most of them being dismissed from service. According to Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao, about 144 travel agents were blacklisted because of their involvement in human smuggling last year. Despite with severely limited resources, Pakistani government is making significant efforts to curb the menace of flesh trade through several administrative and legislative initiatives. It managed to promulgate the Prevention and Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance in 2002 under which, till March 2005, around 747 enquires were conducted and 888 cases against human traffickers were registered. However, since the FIA personnel do not consistently differentiate between trafficking and smuggling, so actual rates of prosecution are difficult to determine.
Under the relevant ordinance, the Government has established FIA Unit, Control Room and Steering Committee in the Ministry of Interior. Federal Ministry of Interior in collaboration with the US State Department has also established the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (ATU) within FIA, to curb rapidly growing crime of human trafficking taking place through various routes.
Besides improving ability to patrol its borders through better training and equipment, government of Pakistan set up checkposts along 904 kilometres Pak-Iran border. Also, the NADRA has been obligated to computerize the “Rahdari” system on Pak-Iran border to check fake Rahdaris.
Furthermore, the government supports targeted prevention programs such as poverty alleviation, the eradication of child labor, promotion of girls’ education, and women’s income generation projects, aimed at eradicating the root causes of trafficking. A government child labor initiative to keep children in school also targets those children and families most susceptible to trafficking.
Pakistan’s efforts to combat severe form of trafficking in person or modern-day slavery bore fruit when its name from the State Department’s watch list on human trafficking was removed in June this year. Earlier satisfied with its crusade against the flesh trade, the US administration moved Pakistan from Tier-2 up to Tier-1 category over human trafficking.
The main hindrances in the elimination of the problem are lack of sufficient information on the issue, lack of awareness at community level, lack of adequate legal protection, absence of shelter and rehabilitation programmes, lack of political commitment on the part of governments, and the lack of proper law enforcement due to which the crime itself often remains invisible. Vigorous public campaign to educate the people could help in curbing the menace.
As Trafficking in human being is a global phenomenon, Pakistan alone should not be singled out. It is encouraging that International Organization for Migration (IOM) in May this year has launched a thematic group “Development of a Conceptual Framework and Strategies to Combat Trafficking” project funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to bring together key stakeholders to chalk out policies and mechanisms. An estimated 900,000 people are trafficked a year while an untold numbers are trafficked within their respective countries. Hence, there is a dire need to sort out comprehensive strategy to facilitate lasting solution of this international phenomenon.
As the human trafficking is directly proportional to poverty and underdevelopment, the developed nations must give their due input in improving the lot of the impoverished humanity of the Third World. They should liberalize their visa regimes besides contributing their promised 0.7% share of their GDP for the global poverty reduction. Like free movement of goods, free trans-border movement of the human beings should also be allowed. WTO regime is to be implemented in a way that it should harm the interests of the third world states. Apart from putting strict checks on money laundering, the advanced nations by extending soft loans should help the poor nations in capacity building programmes to be initiated in urban/rural areas.
In Pakistan, coupled with initiation of action against the culprits, the government is taking measures for the rehabilitation of victims of human trafficking. Nonetheless, the participation of civil society and NGOs with good reputation could supplement government’s efforts.

Bureaucracy — The hurricane of corruption
Col (R) M. Zaman Malik

Even if you appear with a clean state, having ended your personal audit and the audit of your relatives and friends, before the Federal Investigation Agency; Pakistan’s apex law enforcement body, which has extensive powers to investigate corruption in the Federal bureaucracy, and federal as well as provincial anti-corruption committees; no one in Pakistan will ever trust the truth of this entire time-wasting imbecile exercise. Such an exercise, without a shadow of doubt, should not at all be conducted by those even with an iota of conscience and inner voice. Not even a mad man would trust so much as a wee-bit of this time consuming, though ultimately self-felonious discourse. Every one who comes beating his drum much louder than the ousted ones, takes no time to succumb to the same curse sooner than the predecessors, thus delivering a fatal blow to the socio-economic plight of the people of Pakistan.
By now, instead of experiencing this stench of corruption, people were expecting to have easy access to food, drinking water, education, law and order; as Pakistan was left with nothing to save itself from the neocons and India, except its own ‘honest to the hilt dealings’, that would have enhanced people’s mutual trust unprecedently, streamlining all systems for own peace, prosperity and security.
A government devoid of credibility can hardly expect for a good end for itself and for the country. One can look for it in our 58 years of history instead of looking at the writer with piercing teeth using pajorative language. Nothing in this country can make a person so fabulously rich in no time, unless his experienced profession (only Narcotics) is given free hand by his bed-fellows who, while in service were incharge of anti-narcotics department. And now Narcotics fellows have almost moved next to President’s house. Ejaz Hussain Shah, Randawa, Ihtsham Zamir, Tariq Aziz, and Shaikh Shoukat, according to press reports in Sep/Oct 2002,and later on too, delivered marvellously. The same game seems to be in full swing, according to News from Ary on 30 Sep 2005. Otherwise, US had no truck to warn Pakistan for ensuring clean elections at least ‘from the next string onwards’, whatever the level!
The world hears the cries of corruption on the part of Pakistan’s senior bureaucracy. Can’t those in power, more so in the half-baked NSC, mend their own ways atleast? This demand is intensifying by the day, otherwise, US would not have felt the need for issuing the mentioned warning to President. The public’s ignorance of their rights and means of grievance redressal, completed with usually complex intra-departmental investigative (done so by design) procedures, delays in filing and processing cases as well as widespread judicial corruption, and the difficulty in proving allegations of administrative improbity, are the high mountains that retard/disallow systematic and sustained anti corruptions moves at the behest of higher bureaucracy through wire-pulling from behind the curtain.
In the history of Pakistan to its ill luck, ‘this’ higher bureaucracy has been the main cause of our miseries, including break up in December 1971. We can’t celebrate Kargil forever. The strategic partners, unlike us have travelled long distances together since then. And last but not the least, CIA has always been behind every tragedy of our’s, through its planted men in the higher bureaucracy. I don’t know, who are they if any, but I have not come across any body who talks good about the government. There are more than one reasons for it; each one being more aching than the other. Teams must continue to be changed, for inroads are not too difficult. Punishing the corrupt (including oneself) in the higher bureaucracy must continue over a sustained period of time, by the men of integrity, but where can we have them from! People like Chief minister initiate a storm against the corrupt but then suddenly everything gets hashed of. He owes an elaborate explanation concerning every thing in this context. Almost every body is alike.

Afghan refugees and Parliamentary elections
Shamsa Ishfaq

Since last October Afghanistan has been challenged in her rebuilding process. At times she has been forced to postpone the process but nonetheless, the determination to create a representative government has persevered. Ultimately, on September 18, 2005, Afghan citizens will head towards their designated polling stations to cast their vote in the country’s first parliamentary elections. After presidential elections, the upcoming parliamentary elections are another milestone towards restoration of peace and democracy in Afghanistan. The structure of Afghanistan’s new government is designed to bring peace to the unstable country through democratic means i.e. wholesome participation of people of Afghanistan in the upcoming elections. In order to form a representative government it is imperative that refugees camped in Pakistan and Iran should also participate in these elections but unfortunately nothing has been done so far in this regard.
The registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran estimate approximately 800,000 and more than 950,000 respectively. Last year, they were able to participate in the presidential elections held in October 2004 as 125 polling centres (1,130 polling stations) were established in Iran and 630 polling centres (1,672 polling stations) in Pakistan. It was the largest out-of-country voting process that has ever been conducted to date. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) approximately 80% of registered refugees voted that was the biggest refugee vote ever staged. After October 2004 elections, the addition of 1,518,633 new registrants has boosted the number of registered voters by 13.9 percent, resulting in a total of 12,444,050 registered Afghan voters. Yet this number is still expected to increase, due to the recently opened registration stations in six Refugee Encashment Centers, which will allow returning refugees with official UNHCR documentation to register until September 8, 2005.
Noteworthy, voter registration cards issued for the presidential elections in 2004 will still be valid in September 2005 elections. Denial of right to participate to Afghan refugees in these forthcoming elections will develop a sense of alienation from their own land and people. Despite deteriorated security situation in Afghanistan more than 242,000 people have returned from Iran last year as compared to 210,000 refugees from Pakistan, which speaks volumes of their association with Afghanistan. Voluntary repatriation of more than three million Afghans from Pakistan and Iran with UNHCR assistance since March 2002 means something and it should not be overlooked by the concerned authorities. These refugees deserve to be given the right to fully participate in elections making appropriate arrangements across Afghanistan as per last year.
According to reports, Afghan government that strongly supported the principle of refugees’ participation in the parliamentary elections now thinks that a special refugee constituency does not seem appropriate. The alternative of absentee ballot voting presents significant technical difficulties and costs, which is not true. Infact, United Kingdom is making significant contribution to support Afghan parliamentary elections, providing £9.9 million to support the voter registration process, £2.7 million towards the cost of the elections themselves, £274,000 to voter education programmes and an additional £274,000 for election observation.
Regarding technical support, United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) continues to provide political and electoral expertise while the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will continue to oversee trust fund management and donor relations, in addition to building the capacity of Independent Election Commission (IEC). The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) has demonstrated its effectiveness and flexibility in administrative and logistical matters. It will be the executing agency for all electoral budget lines. The operational modalities for the 2005 elections, including the number and location of polling sites, will closely follow the 2004 presidential election. Thus the fear of shortage of funds, technical and logistic facilities is elusive. In short, Afghan refugees are nationals of Afghanistan. This status should be maintained allowing them to exercise their political rights. They have voted for presidential elections in October 2004 similarly the arrangements should be made to ensure their participation in forthcoming parliamentary elections, which is the political right of these Afghan nationals.