The February 2 accident, in which 32 Pakistanis drowned after a boat capsized off the coast of Libya, has once again highlighted the severity of human trafficking and smuggling from the country on one hand, and on the other, the intensity of unemployment among youth in Pakistan. The illegal immigrants intended to go to Europe in search of livelihood.
Labour
The February 2 accident, in which 32 Pakistanis drowned after a boat capsized off the coast of Libya, has once again highlighted the severity of human trafficking and smuggling from the country on one hand, and on the other, the intensity of unemployment among youth in Pakistan. The illegal immigrants intended to go to Europe in search of livelihood.
Corrupt practices on part of the government’s law enforcing agencies and laxity exercised to control the crime, coupled with poor economic conditions and exploitation has resulted in unabated and massive smuggling of job-seekers for long, by land, sea and air. Reports of deportation of as many as 305,678 Pakistanis during the last three years (January 2014-December 2016) from different countries reflects also on the insensitivity of the government to address the issue seriously.
Though the Pakistanis were deported for various reasons, a majority of them were illegal immigrants or asylum seekers. Thousands of them were possessing of tampered passports and fake travel visas for the host country. Sadly, another 87,165 Pakistanis were deported during the six-month period of the current year, while the deportations continued in the subsequent months too.
On December 21, a group of 40 Pakistanis were deported by Saudi Arabia, who were arrested at Benazir Bhutto International Airport, Islamabad on the charges of illegal stay in the host country. It is reported that the United Kingdom would shortly deport to Pakistan 700 illegal immigrants as well. Also, Pakistanis are among the current backlog of 15,000 foreign nationals facing deportation from Canada.
Shocking and revealing statistics show that these Pakistanis had gone abroad in search of better future not only to rich industrialised countries like the United States, Canada, Australia and the European countries, but also to far-off, backward and poor countries where economic conditions and job opportunities are worse than Pakistan. Such countries include Laos, Togo, Port Louis, Lesotho, Liberia, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Botswana, Burundi, Malawi, Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Angola and others. Obviously, human traffickers had deceived them as traffickers do not always involve travel to the destination of exploitation.
In all, these Pakistanis were deported from as many as 134 countries. Saudi Arabia tops the list, having exiled more than three thousand Pakistanis per month on average during the last five years, followed by the UAE, Oman, Malaysia, the UK, Turkey and Greece, in the same order. Reasons for such mass deportation from the Gulf States include, among others, the political instability, declining employment opportunities, and tax policy. Alas, the government of Pakistan remains continually indifferent to the grave situation, which is having far-reaching implications on national foreign remittances too, of the size of $20 billion annually. According to an international Report, “Human trafficking is a crime increasingly associated with other government priorities such as national security, economic stability, migration and environmental sustainability.’
A number of cases of detained illegal Pakistani immigrants in many countries have also surfaced. Data of prisoners and detainees in foreign countries show that at present a total of 9,133 Pakistanis are languishing in prisons. Out of these, 2,795 are imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, 1,650 in the UAE, 435 in Greece, 248 in China, 231 in Hong Kong, 412 in the UK, 44 in the USA and the rest in other countries. Shockingly, there is a long list of other countries that includes Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, and Turkey. The government has so far failed to take concrete measures for their release from prisons and subsequent transportation to Pakistan.
The most recent and lamentable case is that of killing of twenty persons in Turbat (Balochistan) near Pak-Iran border. The victims were deceived by the human traffickers, who told them they were taking them to Europe through Iran, illegally.
World over human trafficking is considered the second largest source of profit in organised crime, after only narcotics, and remains the fastest growing crime. According to the United Nations and International Labour Organization reports, the global illegal trade is around $150 billion, and about 25 million persons are trafficked across international borders, out of which 16 million are exploited for labour.
In Pakistan, human trafficking is said to be an annual trade valuing Rs20 billion, and the network of the traffickers is said to be countrywide, having connections and resources abroad. Unfortunately, the number of prosecutions for human trafficking is alarmingly low in Pakistan, though the root cause of human trafficking is, undoubtedly, the trafficker.
“Trafficking in Persons Report”, released by the US State Department in June 2017, states about the situation in Pakistan that “The government of Pakistan does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking...”
The report says that many Pakistanis go to the Gulf States and Europe for low paying jobs.
The US State department report concludes, “Pakistani men and women migrate voluntarily to the Gulf states and Europe for low-skilled employment—such as domestic service, driving, and construction work; some become victims of labour trafficking. False job offers and high recruitment fees charged by illegal labour agents or sub-agents of licensed Pakistani overseas employment promoters entrap Pakistanis into sex trafficking and bonded labour. Some Pakistani children and adults with disabilities are forced to beg in Iran. Pakistan is a destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labour—particularly from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Women and girls from Afghanistan, China, Russia, Nepal, Iran, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan are reportedly subjected to sex trafficking in Pakistan. Refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Burma, as well as religious and ethnic minorities such as Christians and Hazaras, are particularly vulnerable to trafficking in Pakistan.”
The writer is the former chairman of State Engineering Corporation
