KARACHI, April 15: Speakers at a conference on Monday demanded enforcement of specific laws to check trafficking in women and children so that the menace could be effectively controlled.
They were speaking at the inauguration of a three-day “regional conference on trafficking in women and children within South Asia”, organized jointly by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid.
They said victim women usually had little or no education, were either single or single mothers, had gone through unsuccessful or abusive marriages, were runaways, or were from families who expected daughters to support them.
They said poverty was one of the major reasons due to which poor people fell prey to promises by the middlemen or agents of traffickers who later trafficked the victims across the borders where they were exploited sexually.
They said the victims were used as camel jockeys, for illegal adoption, organ transplant, child forced marriages, drug smuggling, child soldiers, forced labour etc.
Chairperson of the National Commission on Status of Women Justice (retd) Majida Rizvi said human trafficking had become so profitable that it could easily compete with drug trafficking and gun-running as one estimate suggests that the illegal business generated between $5 and $7 billion annually.
She said though there were no accurate figures available, it had been estimated that over 30 million people had been victimized due to women and children trafficking in the past three decades in Asia alone.
She said trafficking routes changed rapidly to adjust to the changing economic or political circumstances or the opening up of new markets. However, globally speaking the main trafficking routes were from south to north and from east to west. In South Asia, the main trafficking routes were from Nepal and Bangladesh to India; from Burma and Bangladesh to Pakistan; and from India and Pakistan to Middle East.
Regional programme director of United Nations Development Fund for Women Chandni Joshi said her organisation was trying to help the SAARC governments to draw up a road map for the implementation of the SAARC Convention on Trafficking that they had committed recently.
She said that it was a discriminatory socio-economic system and family culture, which allowed the commodification of children and women’s bodies. She said though four world conferences had been held there was a growing discourse on women’s rights, the issue of trafficking was a bigger problem than it was earlier.
She said it was a trans-national crime in which the criminal was at the least risk as perhaps the only crime where the victim was invariably penalized.
Punjab Social welfare and Women Development Minister Shaheen Atique-ur-Rehman said that the government has set up core groups to assist the women victims in all the 34 districts of the province.
She said steps were also being taken to help solve the issues being faced by the children. She said that a few juvenile jails were also being established so that the juvenile prisoners were not kept with the adults who usually abused the children inmates.
Islamabad-based Gender Development Manager of CIDA Rukhsana Rashid said a three-pronged strategy at international, regional and local level be formulated to deal with human trafficking in totality and that the laws must identify and implement just and effective remedial measures on priority basis for the trafficked people.
Other speakers suggested that trafficked women and children be recognized as victims and not as criminals, and that they be made witnesses against the real culprits — pimps agents etc.
They said that efforts be made to reach agreements and with other countries to share the repatriation costs and that option of providing temporary amnesty to the trafficked women and children be considered with an option of permanently legalizing their status in the recipient country.
Country reports for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, Afghanistan etc were also presented. Dr Khalida Ghaus, Zia Ahmad Awan of the LHRLA and others also spoke.
Besides local participants, representatives of various NGOs, international delegates including Roma Debharta (India), Vipla Kardi (India), Manori Witharna (Sri Lanka), Pins Brown (United Kingdom), Nandita Baruha (UNIFEM), Ms Geeta (UNIFEM), Sonam Yangchen Rana (UNDP), Ahmad S. Abbasi (Bangladesh), Janaka S. Jayawickrama (Sri Lanka), Eike Wisch (UNICEF, Afghanistan), Deepa Dhital (Nepal), Jeroo Billimoria (India), Meera Mishra (India), and others participated.