Race to break camel slavery |
13/10/2002 THE louder the child jockeys scream in pain the faster the camels to which they are strapped run. Many of the tiny riders have been left to die from the appalling injuries suffered on the desert race courses; their bodies dumped in unmarked graves.Kidnapped or bought from their poverty-stricken parents in Pakistan or Bangladesh, children as young as three are being smuggled into the Gulf states to take part in the lucrative sport of camel racing. While the youngsters are bought for as little as £50, their valuable steeds can cost up to £300,000. The animals are pampered while the child jockeys, who can earn their owners thousand of pounds in a single race, are starved to keep their weight down, beaten and often sexually abused. The full picture of cruelty to children in the oil-rich Gulf region is only now emerging in the wake of the decision by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to implement a law it has long ignored. From the beginning of last month the Emirates Camel Racing Federation has agreed to respect legislation, first introduced in 1993, banning the use of jockeys aged under 15 or weighing less than 45 kg. Offenders face huge fines or imprisonment. But camel racing is big business in the region and charities working to rescue the children and reunite them with their parents claim thousands of underage jockeys are still being held in racing camps. Charity workers, who have been given unprecedented access to the camps, fear the illegal trade will not be eradicated because of the promise of rich pickings for the criminal gangs who buy or kidnap the children and sell them on to the camel owners for up to £16,000. Although the owners of camel stables have been told to repatriate the children, it is estimated that as many as 2,000 are still being kept in the racing camps. Ansar Burney, of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, a charity working to free the child jockeys, said: "These children are purposely underfed so that their weights are kept down. "The food they are given in the camps is dirty and unhygienic, worse than the food given to the racing camels. They have to feed the camels, but are beaten if they try to eat the animals food. "They sleep in hot, crowded huts made from corrugated irons sheets. Its boiling hot out in the desert yet they have to train twice or three times a day. Its hard and painful work and, after a while, the boys have permanent damage to their sexual organs from bouncing up and down on the camels. "During training and in races, they often fall down and are badly injured or crushed to death. Because its illegal to keep underage jockeys, they never receive medical treatment and some of them die very painful deaths. Their bodies are just buried out in the desert in unmarked graves." Seven-year old Mustafa is one of the children rescued by Burney from a camel jockey camp. After searching for his parents for more than six months, he was finally handed back to his family in Pakistans Punjab province last week. "I was playing outside my friends house when I was taken away," said Mustafa. "I was sleeping with other children in a very hot shed made of iron. We were only given food once a day. A lot of the children had blood coming out of their noses." From his personal visits and from the testimonies of children like Mustafa, Burney has been able to build up a disturbing picture of life in the camps. "The children are made to train on the camels for periods lasting up to three or four hours," he said. "Even when the temperatures reach 50°C or above, they have to wear heavy, metal helmets. Most of them are boys but there are also some girls. Its clear that many of them, boys and girls, are sexually abused by the men running the camps." The children are attached to the camels back with Velcro fastenings but so rough is the ride that many of them fall off. One of the advantages of using children as jockeys is that their terrified cries make the camels run even faster. Like Mustafa, many of the child jockeys have been kidnapped from their villages in countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Sudan. Some have been bought from impoverished families by agents. Others are lured from home with promises to their families that they will be employed as domestic servants in cities in their own countries. In one recent case, a woman posing as the mother of three boys and two girls aged between three and seven, was arrested at Islamabad airport in Pakistan. The children were allegedly being taken to Dubai to serve as camel jockeys. However, Shahidul Haque, the IoMs chief of mission in Bangladesh, admits that reuniting the children with their families is a difficult task. "Many of these children were trafficked at a very early age - perhaps between two and five - and often cannot recognise their parents. Some can no longer even speak their mother tongue," he said. Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed al Nahyan, the UAEs minister of state for foreign affairs and chairman of the Emirates Camel Racing Federation, has requested the owners of camel racing stables to repatriate child The Geneva-based IOM has said the UAE authorities appear to be "serious" in implementing the ban on child jockeys but has added that the "demand and supply" aspects of the business also need to be addressed. Press Back on your browser to Return
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