ISLAMABAD: The Sustainable Social Development Organisation (SSDO) has called for a productive coordination between the government and civil society to make an effective policy against human trafficking and smuggling.

The SSDO, which is a research-based advocacy organisation working on issues of peace and sustainable development in Pakistan by engaging all stakeholders and citizens, has also underlined the need for an indigenous threat assessment policy on human trafficking and smuggling that provided empirical evidence and emerging threats about the nature of crime and its relevance with international trends.

In a policy brief on threat assessment of trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants in Pakistan, the SSDO cited a report of Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment of Pakistan, according to which 832,339 Pakistanis emigrated to other countries legally in 2022 and around 316,000 between January to May, this year.

“Organised crimes of global scale are many, but given the geography and economic situation of Pakistan, its people are becoming more vulnerable to human trafficking and human smuggling,” the policy brief said.

It was stressed that once a national and indigenous threat assessment is in place, a robust action plan can be prepared with oversight mechanism by the Council of Common Interests. The armed forces deputed to police international borders may also be included in the governing structure to oversee the implementation of the action plan.

The SSDO suggested that the threat assessment must use measurable and quantitative data sets to provide empirical basis of the trafficking in persons and human smuggling from Pakistan.

The threat assessment needs to consider the cybercrime dimension of trafficking and smuggling of persons into account.

The flow of funds and money laundering aspects of the trafficking in persons be explored to identify the beneficiaries of the illegal acts.

The SSDO stressed that the role of federal and provincial governments and the mechanism of coordination between them and the local and cross border routes that were used to carry out human trafficking and smuggling must be identified and the nexus between drugs and human trafficking might be examined to see how organised crimes were supplementing each other.

It has also suggested that the justice sector response to human trafficking may be examined to identify gaps that must be addressed to make the prosecutions effective.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2023