May 19, 2005	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 10, 1426

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LAHORE, May 18: At least 2,000 Pakistani children involved in camel race in the United Arab Emirates as jockeys will start arriving home from the next month, it is learnt. Official sources told Dawn her e on Wednesday, the first batch of 48 children was likely to arrive here in the last week of June. The UAE government had handed over the list of these children to the Punjab government, they added.

Child Protection Welfare Bureau chairperson Dr Faiza Asghar would accompany the first batch home.

According to a UAE’s preliminary survey report, nearly 3,000 children under 16 years are working as camel jockeys. Of them, at least 2,000 are Pakistanis while the remaining belong to Bangladesh, Sudan and Mauritius.

The sources said the figure of Pakistani children could be even higher after the final report was prepared on camel jockeys.

Dr Faiza said she had represented Pakistan at a workshop on “Consultation on the response to the child involved in camel racing” held in the UAE this month.

She said the UAE government had banned the children (under 16) in the camel race and ordered the camel owners to hand them over to it by May 31.

After completing the paperwork of the recovered children, she said, the UAE government would start handing them over to their respective countries.

“So far 48 Pakistani children have been handed over to the UAE government by the camel owners. The UAE would send them to Pakistan after completing their immigration formalities by next month,” she said.

Quoting some of the Pakistani children there, Dr Asghar said they were four- or five-year-old when they had reached the UAE. They even did know who had brought them there, but remembered their native towns and were eager to return home.

She said most of them belonged to Rahim Yar Khan and could fluently speak in Arabic and Seraiki.

“A bureau team, headed by assistant director Zubair Ahmad Shad, will visit Rahim Yar Khan next week to trace the whereabouts of these children,” she added. Regarding the rehabilitation of the children who would return from the UAE, she said the Punjab government would seek the help of the federal social welfare department and Unicef.

She said the UAE had asked Pakistan to strictly implement immigration laws to check human smuggling, especially of children.

Besides UAE, Qatar had banned children’s involvement in camel races in December last year while Oman had announced it for children under 14 from September this year.

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