Across the border

Movement across the border, both into and outside the country, has been a problematic issue for many years. We know that each year thousands travel out of the country illegally, crossing the frontier in the hope of seeking a better life overseas. Some die while attempting to do so, as they cross mountains or face the border guards of other nations. Others end up in jail or are exploited by the huge human trafficking mafias which extract large sums of money from people on promises of getting them to other countries and sometimes also obtaining jobs for them there, but only rarely fulfil what they say they will do. This matter has been taken up by a three-member bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan while hearing a case on human trafficking. The bench, headed by the chief justice of Pakistan, also noted it was impossible to stop terrorism when people could illegally enter the country from posts such as Torkham without being detected. A large amount of money also comes in the same way. The lack of resources and funds available to the FIA was identified as the key reason for this situation.
Pakistan has vast borders which run along Afghanistan, Iran and India. In many cases, these borders encompass mountainous territory which is almost impossible to control. Yet, a way has to be found to do so. This is necessary both to keep undesirable elements out of the country and to safeguard people who are being whisked across frontiers illegally, placing them at huge risk. The issue of the crossover of terrorists between Pakistan and Afghanistan has come up before in the context of stopping militancy in the region. But there are also other aspects to the problem. The SC hearing has brought forward some of them and also exposed the limitations of our most elite agencies. We need to develop systems to tackle the matter. There are various dimensions to this. As far as the crossing of aliens into our country goes, border checkpoints need to be far more highly secured.

Safeguarding mountain passes is far harder and must involve local people. The human trafficking issue, however, lies beyond the actual border itself. These gangs operate in all major cities and are known to be rooted to a great extent in towns such as Gujrat in Punjab. We have made some sporadic attempts to go after them. But the effort needs to be sped up and improved if there is to be any real hope of keeping people out of the grip of those who in the lust for money are willing to set them to sea aboard unsafe vessels or, sometimes quite literally, force them to cross small mountain corridors even though they have little real hope of reaching the goal of life overseas that they had hoped to achieve.