BAHAWALPUR, Oct 21: At least 700 camel jockeys out of the 2,000 belonging to Rahim Yar Khan district have so far been repatriated and reunited with their dear ones with the efforts of the Punjab Child Protection Welfare Bureau, according to an NGO official working on the project.

Pakistan Rural Workers Social Welfare Organisation Secretary-General Sabir Farhat, who is working on the camel jockey repatriation programme, told Dawn that he had stated this fact during his keynote presentation at the South Asia conference held recently in New Delhi.

He said the UAE had given the undertaking through Unicef on May 8, 2005 to five countries — Pakistan, India, Mauritania, Bangladesh and Sudan — that it would repatriate their thousands of children trafficked to its soil as camel jockeys.

He said the CPWB had a list of 3,000 children who were yet to be brought back from the Gulf states. The 700 repatriated children had been reunited with their families after rehabilitation.