Karachi emerging as a transit point for women trafficking to West

Andhra News (12th June 2007)

Karachi, June 12 : With tight security in place at and around airports in Pakistan and other countries, the port city of Karachi has become a major transit point for a large-scale and organised human trafficking.

According to the Dawn, human cargoes, mostly women, are being smuggled into the Gulf countries and even to Europe via Iran, apparently with the help of security agencies.

Sarim Burney of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust claimed that human traffickers are using the land route via Mandh Billoh in Iran.

"Indians as well as Pakistani women are being smuggled out of Karachi," he was quoted as saying, adding that one of the methods used by the traffickers is to pass the women off as their wives.

Burney went on to claim that such a large-scale human trafficking was not possible without the involvement of security agencies, particularly the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

His claims seem substantial given the fact that some time ago, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao told the National Assembly that during the last three years, 27 high and low-ranking FIA officials were dismissed or sent on forced retirement on charges of human trafficking.

The report says that majority of the women trafficked internally or abroad are from Punjab, followed by Sindh and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Over 70 per cent of them fall into traffickers' clutches because of poor socio-economic conditions.

Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA) chief Zia Ahmed Awan said that such smuggling is taking place on a large scale and only a few incidents reach public attention.

He called for laws to curtail the internal trafficking of women and children, terming it as the "real human trafficking".

ANI

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