PESHAWAR, Nov 28: Human smuggling in tribal areas through the Pakistan-Afghanistan border could not be checked because the law to check the menace had not been extended to the tribal areas, legal experts and government officials said.

Talking to Dawn, lawyers said the Prevention and Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance, 2002, which was promulgated on Oct 3, 2002, was yet to be extended to Fata and Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (Pata).

They said the FIA had been entrusted with the task of checking human smuggling in the country, but the FIA Act of 1974, through which the agency was created, had not been extended to Fata and thus the agency could not function in these areas.

However, the FIA Act was extended to Pata on May 26, 2000, by the NWFP governor. Under Article 247 of the Constitution, no act of parliament or ordinance could be applied to Fata unless the president of Pakistan issued a special order for the extension of the law to Fata.

Similarly, the governor has to issue a special order with the prior approval of the president for extending a law to Pata. The Prevention and Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance was promulgated by the president in line with the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children.

Six agencies share border with Afghanistan, namely Khyber, Bajaur, Mohmand, Kurram, North and South Waziristan. In two districts of Pata - Chitral and Dir - Pakistan shares border with Afghanistan.

"The non-applicability of the ordinance to Fata and Pata is creating serious complications as at present there is no law to check human smuggling in tribal areas," Voice of Prisoners chairman Noor Alam Khan advocate claimed.

He said the most serious aspect of the entire situation was that trafficking of women and children from Afghanistan to Pakistan was going on without any check through the porous border.

Although there were different provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code for checking kidnapping or abduction of women and children, there was no such provision which could help checking human trafficking, he added.

As the FIA Act and the Police Order 2002 had not been extended to Fata so far, the tribal administration were solely responsible for keeping an eye on such activities.

Under the ordinance, human trafficking is defined as: "Obtaining, securing, selling, purchasing, recruiting, detaining, harbouring or receiving a person notwithstanding his implicit or explicit consent, by the use of coercion, kidnapping, abduction, or by giving or receiving any payment or benefit, or sharing or receiving a share for such person's subsequent transportation out of or into Pakistan by any means whatsoever for any of the purposes mentioned in section 3."

An FIA official told Dawn that the agency had registered various cases all over the country under the ordinance during the past two years, but as Fata was out of their jurisdiction no case had been registered there.