How to eliminate human trafficking?

According to media reports, last month bullet-riddled bodies of 15 men were found in Balochistan who were innocent people, trapped by human trafficking agents to illegally transport them and get them settled in Europe. While crossing Iran border, these people were kidnapped by BLF, as in a Twitter message a banned terrorist group BLF claimed the responsibility for killing them. Pakistan is confronted with the problem of human trafficking, and people are suffering because apart from financial losses, the victims lose their lives. Government should start an operation throughout the country to capture human traffickers and their facilitators. In fact, action should be taken against them under operation Radd-ul-Fasaad, and they should be brought to book and awarded sentences. It should be borne in mind that they are not any less cruel than terrorists playing with the lives of innocent people.
Last month, paramilitary Levies force had found 15 dead bodies from Bulida area of Turbat district. Jamil Ahmed, Assistant Commissioner (AC) Turbat, told journalists that the victims had been kidnapped on gunpoint by unknown men when they were on their way to Iran from Punjab for their livelihood. They were shot to death in Gaaruki’s mountain area. He said that Levies force on information reached the site and took the bodies into custody, and later the bodies were shifted to nearby hospitals morgue for identification and legal formalities. Reportedly, they belonged to Punjab. In KP also, people are concerned over the rising cases of abduction and human trafficking. Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), under its special campaign registered total 368 cases of human trafficking in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) during the last three years. However, one would not know as to how many cases were taken to the logical conclusion.
In June 2017, President of Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA) and founder of the Madadgaar National Helpline, Advocate Zia Ahmed Awan filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the increasing cases of disappearances, human trafficking, kidnappings, beggars and street children in the country. The petition named 37 respondents including the Ministry of Inter Provincial Coordination, Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Interior, National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), Ministry of Human Rights, National Commission on Human Rights, Federal Investigation Agency, the home departments of all four provinces and Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, to name the few. Speaking to the national English daily Awan said cases of disappearance, human trafficking, kidnappings, beggars and street children have been rapidly increasing throughout Pakistan, which is a matter of great mental pain and anguish for people, and which requires immediate intervention by the court.
On 2nd July, 2017, the official US Trafficking in Persons report for 2017 said “Pakistan is making significant efforts to eliminate human trafficking. The State Department, which prepares the report for Congress, granted Pakistan a waiver, allowing it to stay in the tier two watch list for the fourth consecutive year. The watch list includes countries whose governments do not fully meet the standards to prevent trafficking, but are making significant efforts to do so. Without a waiver, Pakistan would have been delegated to tier three, which brings certain sanctions under a US law called Trafficking Victims Protection Act 2000. This year’s report points out that the government of Pakistan does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, “it demonstrated significant efforts during the reporting period (2016) by increasing investigations, prosecutions, and convictions of sex trafficking”.
It notes that the government amended its national strategic framework against trafficking in persons and human smuggling to extend it through 2020 and ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child Optional Protocol on Armed Conflict. Sindh adopted a law prohibiting bonded labor and both Sindh and Punjab passed legislation criminalising child sex trafficking and forced labor with sufficiently stringent sentences. In November last year, Balochistan passed legislation establishing District Child Protection Units, which are charged with providing case management and ensuring that abused children, including trafficking victims, receive appropriate government services. Punjab opened its first wholly-integrated women’s shelter for victims of violence and Sindh increased its budget for women’s shelters. Punjab reported it identified and removed approximately 79,000 children working in brick kilns, some of whom may have been victims of bonded labor. Overall, government law enforcement efforts on labour trafficking remained inadequate.
Despite bonded labor being Pakistan’s biggest trafficking problem; only Punjab reported convictions for bonded labor and the total number was as low as 10 convictions in 2016. The report also deals with Pakistani men and women who migrate voluntarily to the Gulf States and Europe for low-skilled employment but some become victims of labor trafficking. False job offers and high recruitment fees charged by illegal labor agents or sub-agents of licensed Pakistani overseas employment promoters entrap Pakistanis into sex trafficking and bonded labor. Some Pakistani children and adults with disabilities are forced to beg in Iran. Whereas the government should increase its efforts to stop human trafficking, it should also deal with the menace by allowing army to nab them under operation Raddul Fasad so that human traffickers and their facilitators are dealt with an iron hand.