Five-year-old Pakistani camel jockey injured in race |
16/09/2004 KARACHI: A five-year old Pakistani ‘Camel Jockey’, Muhammad Hussain, belonging to Rahim Yar Khan fell off a camel and sustained serious head injuries in Al-Ain, UAE, on Wednesday.He is in coma, Ansar Burney told The News by telephone from London. According to details provided by Burney, the child fell off the camel while being trained for the camel race in Al-Ain Wednesday morning. As the child fell off, he was trampled by the camel and is reported to be in a critical condition. The child’s father is by his side. Burney, however, said that he had contacted the embassies of the United States and Pakistan in the UAE. The political Secretary at the US embassy, Susan K. Raddant, Burney said, had assured all assistance in this regard on behalf of the US government. Raddant, he said, had contacted the UAE government requesting intervention to make sure that no child under 14 was used in camel races. The UAE government had responded positively, he said. He further disclosed that he had contacted United Nations Organisation and the matter of using children in camel races, would be resolved by imposing ban on the race, even though it was part of UAE culture. Both the embassies’ personnel are at present in the hospital and trying to provide all possible help to the child. On the question of bringing the child back home, he said for the moment, doctors were trying to save the life of the child who had sustained serious head injuries. The volunteers of Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International (ABWTI) in the UAE is the only NGO, which has taken up the issue at the international level. Within a week, he said, the ABWTI rescued 36 children and helped bring them back home. He also said that influential camp owner, with the help of Al-Ain police, was trying to take the boy away from the hospital. He also said that jockeys were usually two-to-seven years old, chosen for their light weight. Even two-to-seven-year olds are imported from South Asia and these camel owners start their training at the tender age of a year-and-a-half. These jockeys work from early morning, around 3 am and finish off at 9 in the night, he said. As Burney says, the new rules published by the Emirates Camel Racing Federation (ECRF) However, the rules are being ignored and allegations persist that the Emirates government, despite acknowledging that many of the racers are too young and weigh too little, they still avoid stopping this heinous slave trafficking because they themselves are camel and slave owners. Press Back on your browser to Return
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