Checking human trafficking

The government has finally started taking serious cognisance of the problem of human trafficking. The Minister of State for Interior, Senator Shahzad Wasim, told journalists at the Parliament House on Tuesday that the government is planning to conduct debriefing of people repatriated by foreign immigration authorities back to Pakistan. That, of course, will serve as a useful source of information as to the identity of human trafficking gangs operating in this country as well as their foreign accomplices, and also the routes they use to smuggle people to various destinations in Europe and the Gulf region.
That Pakistan is a big source of international human trafficking is an embarrassing and open secret. For years, tragic stories of children smuggled to certain Gulf countries in order to be used as jockeys in the dangerous camel races have been regularly appearing in the national press. Yet the practice has gone on. In fact, the Minister of State disclosed that during the last two years, FIA had registered more than 60 incidents of child trafficking to the UAE for camel races. In the same period, it had detected another 758 cases of people smuggling.
Pakistan being a poor country those looking for opportunities to go and work abroad come from underprivileged backgrounds. They take loans or sell their possessions in order to buy what they see as a secure economic future abroad. In most instances, they are unaware of the illegality of their actions and the hazards that lie ahead.
In any case, looking for better economic opportunity is a normal human impulse, and indeed a basic human right also. Hence, people are not to blame if they are taking risks to improve their own and their families' living conditions. Every year countless people take such risks, which at times result in horrible consequences. One particularly tragic case in point was the killing, a couple of years ago, of five Pakistani illegal economic migrants in Macedonia who were allured in from a neighbouring refuge as part of a pre-planned drama the country's interior minister had thought up.
Portraying these unfortunate men as 'Islamic terrorists' he got them killed in cold-blood by his security forces, and with a view to completing the picture placed firearms by their dead bodies - all this to show to the Americans that he was doing a great job in support of their so-called war against terrorism.
People will want to take monetary as well as physical risks as long as the system allows them to do so. It is for the government to ensure that in taking such risks people do not bring a bad name to the country, and also that they themselves do not suffer humiliation or come in the harm's way. It must crack down on the smuggling rackets, which the State Minister for Interior himself said, are "very influential" and have forged international linkages. It must also keep a vigilant eye on all the routes that the smugglers use to send people across borders.
The minister mentioned some important steps that the government is taking in this regard. It has taken the initiative, he said, to introduce severe punishment of up to 14 years to those found guilty of being engaged in human smuggling. And it also intends to establish special checkpoints along the country's border with Iran, which is a much used route for human trafficking. He also spoke of a plan to set up a help line in the FIA headquarters and a web site where information regarding human traffickers and fake travel agents would be placed for public information.
The plan looks good on paper. But given that ordinary people in this country dread rather than trust security outfits such as FIA, the help line needs to be set up at a place that has a softer public image. And since the victims of human smuggling happen to be ordinary people with little education, it is hard to imagine that such people would benefit from access to a web site, though it would certainly be of use to some other sections of society. It would be desirable, therefore, to put such information, in addition to the web site, in public awareness advertisements in the media.