Human Trafficking in [Pakistan Street Children in [Pakistan] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Pakistan] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Islamic Republic of Pakistan [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Islamic
Republic of Pakistan [map] is located in S
Asia and is bordered by India (E), the Arabian Sea (S), Iran (SW), and Pakistan is a
significant source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and
children trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor.
Pakistan faces a considerable internal trafficking problem reportedly
involving thousands of women and children trafficked to settle debts and
disputes, or forced into sexual exploitation or domestic servitude. According
to one NGO, children as young as six years old are forced into domestic
service, and face physical and sexual abuse. Bonded labor is a large internal
problem in Pakistan; unconfirmed estimates of Pakistani victims of bonded
labor, including men, women, and children, are in the millions. A sizeable
number of Pakistani women and men migrate voluntarily to the Gulf, Iran,
Turkey and Greece for work as domestic servants or construction workers. Once
abroad however, some find themselves in situations of involuntary servitude
or debt bondage, including restrictions on movement, non-payment of wages,
threats, and physical or sexual abuse. In addition, some NGOs contend that
Pakistani girls are trafficked to the Middle East for sexual exploitation.
Pakistan is also a destination for women and children from Bangladesh, India,
Burma, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgz Republic, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan
for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Women from Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Burma are trafficked through Pakistan to the Gulf. - U.S. State Dept
Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008
[full country report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Pakistan. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No attempt has been made to validate their
authenticity or to verify their content. ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Bonded labour
otherwise known as debt slavery is rampant in Pakistan. The system works as
follows. Desperately poor families go to a feudal employer usually a brick
kiln owner or a carpet manufacturer and ask them for a loan, perhaps to pay
for medical treatment for a sick child. In return for the loan, the entire
family is turned into the private property of the employer. They are forced
to work long hours for pitiful wage and half of these wages are kept by the
factory owner as payment towards the loan.
The loan may take a generation or more to pay off. But until it is
paid, the family are held in slavery. Iqbal had been sold by his mother to a
carpet manufacturer at the age of four. For years he spent twelve hours a
day, seven days a week working in carpet factories for a pittance. He eventually rebelled against his
conditions and became a major figure in the BLLF.
At the age of 12 he was traveling Pakistan addressing mass meetings and
leading demos of thousands of children against industrial slavery. To this day, his murder has never been satisfactorily
explained. Contemporary
Forms of Slavery in Pakistan SUMMARY - Millions of workers in Pakistan
are held in contemporary forms of slavery.
Throughout the country employers forcibly extract labor from adults and
children, restrict their freedom of movement, and deny them the right to
negotiate the terms of their employment. Employers coerce such workers into
servitude through physical abuse, forced confinement, and debt-bondage. The
state offers these workers no effective protection from this exploitation.
Although slavery is unconstitutional in Pakistan and violates various
national and international laws, state practices support its existence. The
state rarely prosecutes or punishes employers who hold workers in servitude.
Moreover, workers who contest their exploitation are invariably confronted
with police harassment, often leading to imprisonment under false charges. Third Anniversary of the Murder of Iqbal Masih, Pakistani Child Activist (1983-1995) Iqbal Masih made a difference. His was the voice of a child pointing out to adults the horrible costs and injustices of child slavery. Twelve years old and one of the mightiest voices in Pakistan against child labor, Iqbal was a compelling survivor of slavery in Pakistan's carpet industry. For half of his life, Iqbal was bonded in the hand-knotted carpet industry.
Enslaved at the age of four, for an advance of less than $16 to his parents,
he was chained to his loom, tying tiny knots for twelve hours a day, every
day. Six years later, when he confronted his boss demanding his freedom, the
debt he owed had risen to $419. ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – Although
no accurate statistics on trafficking existed, the country was a source,
transit, and destination country for trafficked persons. Women and girls were
trafficked from Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2003 [76] While noting the serious
efforts undertaken by the State party to prevent child trafficking, the
Committee is deeply concerned at the very high incidence of trafficking in
children for the purposes of sexual exploitation, bonded labor and use as
camel jockeys. HRCP terms 2007 ‘multi-crisis year’ HRCP Director IA Rehman
told reporters at the launch of the organisation’s
annual report – ‘State of Human Rights in 2007’ – at the Lahore Press Club
that many reports had been received from various parts of Balochistan
in 2007, claiming that parents or children had been left with no option but
to sell their kidneys in order to feed their families, due to the ongoing crisis
of armed conflict there. Organ
trafficking: a fast-expanding black market China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Brazil, the Philippines, Moldova, and Romania are
among the world's leading providers of trafficked organs. If China is known
for harvesting and selling organs from executed prisoners, the other
countries have been dealing essentially with living donors, becoming
stakeholders in the fast-growing human trafficking web. Pakistan:
poverty forces trafficking of children on the rise While boys in impoverished parts
of rural Pakistan, particularly towns in the southern Punjab, are more likely
to be trafficked overseas, girls are trafficked more often within the
country, and sometimes sold into what amounts to little more than sexual
slavery, says the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). HRCP has reported that in most cases,
they are given away for amounts of money ranging from US$1,300 to $5,000 by
impoverished parents, sometimes in "marriage"; and sometimes to
agents who promise lucrative jobs as domestic servants in large cities. Many of these girls, according to
child rights groups, end up as sex workers. Some are no older than 10 at the
time of the "sale". "Hundreds of girls are
trafficked within the country each year. There are markets in the North West
Frontier Province where these victims are sold like cattle," I.A. Rehman, director of the
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said. - htcp International
day to eliminate violence against women on 25th According to the data compiled by Madadgaar Helpline, 4,624 women were victimised
in Pakistan from January to August. Of them, 935 women were killed, 104
murdered after rape, 416 raped, 160 gang raped, 809 tortured, 485 became
victims of karo-kari, 166 burnt, 642 kidnapped, 129
reported as victim of police torture, 576 committed suicide, 127 fell victim
of human trafficking and 75 were arrested under the Hudood
Ordinance. SPARC condemns human trafficking www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=44848 Some tribal elders from Balochistan also attended the meeting in which the girl’s
family was told to give her as per their customs. This trading, which in many
cases is done under the name of loan settling, is contingent upon the power,
might and money of the lenders, who provide loans to the needy and later
impose heavy interest in order to get away with their innocent minor
daughters. “Child trafficking can be facilitated by local practices and
customs because of the economic problems a family faces that forces them to
sell their daughters to marriage. Horrific fate awaits children spurned by society www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=43990 “Saddar
is the hub of street children from all areas of Karachi,” says Aqsa Zainab of Azad Foundation, adding that child abusers are mostly
found near shrines where ‘langar’ is distributed or
near railway stations where they arrive from other cities. It is from here
the young boys are kidnapped and sold as commercial sex workers. - htsccp Govt committed to eliminate problems of human trafficking The Prime Minister was informed
that there has been a significant increase in the arrest of human traffickers
and smugglers. Whereas only 300 human smugglers were arrested in 2004. The number of arrested smugglers increased
to 874 in 2006 while the number of deportees has been decreased. UN
report regarding Pakistan in human trafficking baseless, Senate told Meanwhile, Federal Health Minister
Nasser Khan told Upper House a particular lobby is working against Pakistan
and several Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and European Countries are
trying to defame Pakistan. Pak
one of the key sources of women trafficking in world: UN report A UN report has described Pakistan
as the “one of the key sources of women trafficking” in the world. It said that India had also lately emerged
as a key destination and transit point for global trafficking of women and
girls. Pakistani
minister for community involvement in eliminating human trafficking Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao on
Monday stressed the need for involvement of the whole community in the
efforts to eliminate human trafficking.
"We believe that most effective way of eliminating human
trafficking is by empowering people at risk," he said, adding that
"empowerment of people is possible through education, employment and
provision of security," Crackdown
on human trafficking ISLAMABAD - About 150 were taken into
custody from Islamabad International Airport on account of human trafficking,
blacklist passports and illegal travelling by the
Federal Investigation Agency in the last five months. Human
trafficking allegations involve Swiss diplomatic missions in Pakistan Switzerland has announced it
is replacing all its embassy and consular staff in Pakistan after
accusations some employees were involved in a human trafficking racket. Switzerland shut the visa section at
its Islamabad embassy earlier this month, following a Pakistani investigation
into the illegal issuing of Swiss visas that has led to a number of
arrests. Swiss
Envoys in Pakistan Embroiled in Human Trafficking The issue came to the surface
after local media started highlighting the plight of Pakistani visa
applicants who complained of sexual harassment by Swiss embassy officials. FIA has curbed human trafficking The Federal Investigation Agency’s
(FIA) work over the last year and a half has
brought down human trafficking by “200 percent” over the period, Sherpao told reporters at Peshawar International Airport. Indo-Pak girls forced into prostitution In a startling case of organised women trafficking that has come to light,
Pakistani and Indian girls aged between 11 and 13 are being smuggled to the
Middle East countries for being forced into prostitution there. The girls,
who are shown as aged between 20 and 22 on their passports, are brought to
these countries on the pretext of getting them attracting jobs. - htcp Quake
Orphans Being Sold into Prostitution Aisha loves the clothes her new guardian
has bought for her, what she doesn't realize is this woman just bought her
for $1500 and intends to make her into a prostitute. Other children in the
area are being bought up by pimps who will pay twice that. Slavery
Survives, Despite Universal Abolition Nadeem has spent most of his life
hunched over a carpet loom in US Report Lauds
Pak Steps Against Human Trafficking The US State Department has
praised Girls
In Iran Being Sold In Pakistan On Daily Basis At least 54 Iranian girls and
young women, between the ages of 16 and 25, are sold on the streets of Forced
Marriage - Pakistanis Order Betrothal of 2-Year-Old A tribal council in Seven-year-old
Fauzia and five-year-old Aasia
were sold by their father for Rs80,000 and an acre of agricultural land. Judge
Orders Inquiry Into Sale Of Seven-Year-Old Girl A judge directed
police to conduct an inquiry into the sale of a seven-year-old girl to a
35-year-old man for marriage. His wife
complained that he had sold the girl for Rs18,000 to a resident of Mazdoorabad Mohalla in Dadu for marriage but the girl managed to escape. After
some time when Allah Ditta could not pay the
amount, the winners sought custody of his daughter Children from Pakistan, Bangladesh
and Sudan are still being smuggled to the United Arab Emirates to work as
camel jockeys, despite a law passed two years ago banning their use. It is not uncommon for child jockeys to
fall off and be injured while racing, and their illegal status means race
track owners are often reluctant to take them to hospital. Instead, says Ansar
Burney, the boys often arrive with broken hands or broken legs. And many, he
says, have been sodomized. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 6 Civil Liberties: 5 Status: Not Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide U.S. Library of Congress
- Country Study Servitude exists in many forms in
Pakistan. Over the past two decades, hundreds of thousands of Afghan families
— eager to flee 20 years of war and three years of drought — have sought safe
haven in Pakistan, only to spend the rest of their lives working to pay off
the debts they accumulated to get there. They do so by becoming indentured
laborers, often at brick factories, and by sending their children to carpet
factories that crave small fingers. Indentured servitude is not only legal
but ubiquitous in Pakistan, and servant culture thrives: the wealthy can have
a driver, three maids, a cook, and a night watchman for less than $75 a
month. Women are being sold like animals
in Pakistani markets. The trade is
being encouraged by corrupt officials and politicians in the Sindh province of the country. Anti human practices are taking place in
markets of Thar and other parts of Sindh under protection of influential politicians. The buyers of these unfortunate women fix
their prices after examining and scanning their bodies. They humiliate and sexually harass these
women in public. Bonded labour
otherwise known as debt slavery is rampant in Pakistan. The system works as
follows. Desperately poor families go to a feudal employer usually a brick
kiln owner or a carpet manufacturer and ask them for a loan, perhaps to pay
for medical treatment for a sick child. In return for the loan, the entire
family is turned into the private property of the employer. They are forced
to work long hours for pitiful wage and half of these wages are kept by the
factory owner as payment towards the loan.
The loan may take a generation or more to pay off. But until it is
paid, the family are held in slavery. Iqbal had been sold by his mother to a
carpet manufacturer at the age of four. For years he spent twelve hours a
day, seven days a week working in carpet factories for a pittance. He eventually rebelled against his
conditions and became a major figure in the BLLF.
At the age of 12 he was traveling Pakistan addressing mass meetings and leading
demos of thousands of children against industrial slavery. To this day, his murder has never been
satisfactorily explained. The most common form of slavery is
debt bondage, in which a human being becomes collateral against a loan. With
a massive population boom in regions of staggering poverty, some families
have nothing to pledge for a loan but their own labor. With inflated interest
rates, debts are often inherited, ensnaring generations. 15 to 20 million
slaves are in debt bondage in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. PAKISTAN - • Young children whose parents
take money in advance for their work on carpet looms are victims of the “peshgi” or debt-bondage system in Pakistan. They are paid
half the wages of older workers and are not allowed to leave the premises
until the debt is fully paid. Older workers sexually abuse these
children. (A Rapid Assessment of
Bonded Labour in the Carpet Industry of Pakistan,
International Labour Office, March 2004). TED Case
Studies - NIKE: Nike Shoes and Child Labor in Pakistan NIKE AS A HELPER OR EXPLOITER TO IIIRD WORLD - A columnist 'Stephen Chapman' from Libertarian
newspaper argues that "But why is it unconscionable for a poor country
to allow child labor? Pakistan has a per-capita income of $1,900 per year -
meaning that the typical person subsists on barely $5 per day. Is it a a revelation - or a crime - that some parents willingly
send their children off to work in a factory to survive? Is it cruel for Nike
to give them the chance?" (source:
http://www.raincity.com/~williamf/words96.html) Stephen argues that the best way
to end child-labor is to buy more of the products that children produce. This
would increase their demand, and as they will produce more, they will earn
more, hence giving themselves chane to rise above
poverty level and thus also benefiting the families of the children and as
well as the nation. However, the issue is not that
simple. Increasing the demand of the products produced by child labor means
encouraging more child labor, encouraging more birth rates, more slavery,
increasing sweatshops and discouraging education - as parents of the children
working in factories would want them to work more and earn more. If this
happened to be the case, then more and more children will be bought and sold
on the black market, leading no end to this problem. By encouraging more
child labor, you are not only taking away those innocent years from them but
also the right to be educated and the right to be free. Saudi Religious Leader Calls for Slavery's Legalization Muslims, in contrast, still think the old way. Slavery still exists in a host of majority-Muslim countries (especially Sudan and Mauritania, also Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) and it is a taboo subject. To enable pious Muslims to avoid interest, an Islamic financial industry worth an estimated $150 billion has developed. The challenge ahead is clear:
Muslims must emulate their fellow monotheists by modernizing their religion
with regard to slavery, interest and much else. No more fighting jihad to
impose Muslim rule. No more endorsement of suicide terrorism. No more
second-class citizenship for non-Muslims. In Pakistan,
'slavery' persists "Once the hari
[peasant] is caught in debt then he and his family becomes virtual prisoners
of the feudal lord," says Nasreen Pathan with Pakistan-based Human Rights Commission.
"Peasants are illiterate and cannot keep account, and the interest on
the loan increases on the whims and wishes of feudal lords and their
men." People are either born into
bondage, sold into it by family members, or enter through loans they cannot
repay. "I was born on the fields,
married there, but did not want to die there," says Sanwal
Kohli, who was released three years ago by the
human rights activists during a police-led raid. Showing scars on his back
and legs, he says, "They used to beat us up for slightest mistakes and
kept us chained at nights. Armed men guarded the fields so nobody would run
away." Killing
for carpets -- slavery and death in Pakistan's carpet industry "Oriental" carpets are
valued throughout the world. They are found in the homes of the well-to-do,
on the floors of corporate boardrooms, and in marbled palaces of sheiks and
kings. They come from Asia and the Middle East -- Iran, Kashmir, China, and
the Central Asian Republics of the former Soviet Union. They are also made in
Pakistan, in factories in which children as young as four years of age, often
chained to their looms, squat shoulders hunched, for 14 hours a day, six days
a week, making beautifully intricate carpets by tying thousands of knots with
fingers gnarled and callused from years of back-breaking labor. In Pakistan, between 500,000 and 1,000,000
children between the ages of four and fourteen work full-time as carpet
weavers. Stop
Child Slave Auctions in Pakistan BACKGROUND INFORMATION "Sale of Children Thrives in
Pakistan," Andrew Bushell, Washington Times As the war in Afghanistan
continues, many children fleeing into Pakistan face a life worse than one
under the Taliban: slavery. Desperate and starving, these Afghan child
refugees are sold to or abuducted by middlemen. They are then sold again in
bustling slave auctions to the highest bidder. The boys are used as domestic
or manual laborers; some are shipped to the Persian Gulf, where they are used
as camel jockeys. The price for the girls is euphemized as a dowry. But they
never marry; instead, the girls are used for sex - in a brothel, as a
concubine, or in a harem. Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation - Pakistan Auctions of girls are arranged for
three kinds of buyers: rich visiting Arabs (sheiks, businessmen, visitors,
state-financed medical and university students), the rich local gentry, and
rural farmers. (CATW - Asia Pacific
"Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific". SUMMARY: This paper describes the gross
and continuing violation of the rights of millions of people in India,
Pakistan and Nepal1, who are trapped in debt bondage and forced to work to repay
loans. Their designation as persons belonging outside the Hindu caste system
is a major determining factor of their enslavement. Evidence from all three countries shows
that the vast majority (80%-98%) of bonded labourers
are from communities designated as “untouchable”, to whom certain occupations
are assigned, or from indigenous communities.
In the same way that caste status is inherited, so debts are passed on
to the succeeding generations. Modern
Slavery - Human bondage in Africa, Asia, and the Dominican Republic SHACKLED LABORERS IN PAKISTAN - Many of the bonded laborers are
shackled in leg-irons in Pakistan. Though much of the debt these cane-harvesters
have incurred is real, the practice of exchanging human labor for landowners'
loans is illegal. In a 1992 law passed by the
Pakistani government, landlords are barred from offering loans in exchange
for work or to hold workers hostage to their debts. The Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan has freed approximately 7,500 bonded laborers since
1995. By the commission's estimates,
there are still roughly 50,000 bonded laborers in southern Singh. Many of
those freed now reside in the city of Hyderabad in makeshift camps. Most are
afraid to return to their homeland, however, for fear they will be recaptured
and enslaved again. Bonded
Child Labour in Pakistan Sakina* is 12 years old and works with
her family as a bonded labourer for a landlord in Umerkot district in Sindh
Province, Pakistan. Her family needed money and accepted wages in advance
from a landlord. Over time they became trapped, and now work just to pay a
debt that grows each year. I pluck
cotton and chillies, harvest wheat and other crops
and do whatever is asked by the landlord...They beat me and keep us hungry.
They say they will not give us food if we do not work... I can't leave or my
parents will be beaten and where will I go?" The
New Slavery: An Interview with Kevin Bales Bales:
Debt bondage is the most common form of slavery in the world today,
particularly in Pakistan and India. It’s also illegal, but tends to be a
little more adaptable to modern economics. Here’s how it works: A person
borrows some money and pledges his or her labor as collateral against that
loan. The length and nature of the service are not defined, and the profits
from the slave’s labor don’t reduce the original debt: that money
automatically belongs to the person who made the loan in the first place. Jensen: So
if you’re a debt-bonded slave, you’re not working to pay back the loan? Bales: No,
because you and all of your labor have become collateral. The money to pay
back the loan has to come from somewhere else. That’s the way it is with most
debt bondage. In some debt bondage, the work is supposedly paying back what’s
been borrowed, but in reality it’s almost impossible to pay back the debt.
I’ve met families in India who’ve been bonded for four generations on one
debt: Great-grandfather borrowed thirty dollars, and Great-grandson is still
working to pay it off. In a sense, this resembles chattel slavery, because
it’s passed down through generations, except the rationale for the slavery is
the debt. Modern
Day Slavery Around The World Slavery takes different forms in
different lands. In Pakistan and India there is debt bondage. Poor people are
tricked with promises of good jobs, but they are isolated and must deal with
their employer in every way. The food they buy and other required things are
sold only by their employers, with very high prices. The workers are forced
to stay and work until the debt is paid off. But the deck is stacked so the
debt keeps getting bigger. The "employee" is a slave for life. And, even beyond life. The
children are kept working until the debt is paid, which never happens.
Generations are forced to work without ever seeing a day of freedom. Like other slaveries, force is used to keep
the worker in his place. Beatings, threats and killings are commonplace. However, in 1999 we are obliged to
conclude that, despite temporary progress following the Supreme Court's
judgment, debt bondage remains both widespread and virtually unchallenged by
the Government of Pakistan. Indeed, it is both remarkable and tragic how
little government officials have been willing to do to enforce the country's
laws and to bring an end to debt bondage, and how willingly they appear to
tolerate its persistence. Third Anniversary of the Murder of Iqbal Masih, Pakistani Child Activist (1983-1995) Iqbal Masih made a difference. His was the voice of a child pointing out to adults the horrible costs and injustices of child slavery. Twelve years old and one of the mightiest voices in Pakistan against child labor, Iqbal was a compelling survivor of slavery in Pakistan's carpet industry. For half of his life, Iqbal was bonded in the hand-knotted carpet industry.
Enslaved at the age of four, for an advance of less than $16 to his parents,
he was chained to his loom, tying tiny knots for twelve hours a day, every
day. Six years later, when he confronted his boss demanding his freedom, the
debt he owed had risen to $419. Contemporary
Forms of Slavery in Pakistan SUMMARY - Millions of workers in Pakistan
are held in contemporary forms of slavery. Throughout
the country employers forcibly extract labor from adults and children,
restrict their freedom of movement, and deny them the right to negotiate the
terms of their employment. Employers coerce such workers into servitude
through physical abuse, forced confinement, and debt-bondage. The state
offers these workers no effective protection from this exploitation. Although
slavery is unconstitutional in Pakistan and violates various national and
international laws, state practices support its existence. The state rarely
prosecutes or punishes employers who hold workers in servitude. Moreover,
workers who contest their exploitation are invariably confronted with police
harassment, often leading to imprisonment under false charges. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC §
107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use |
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Human Trafficking in [Pakistan Street Children in [Pakistan] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Pakistan] [other countries]