Trafficking of Weaker Vessels
Dear Readers,
Exploitation of "weaker vessels", poor women from the poor nations, enslaving them, auctioning them after examining their bodies in open market like soon to be slaughtered animals for religious creed, and selling these profitable commodities to rich Arab sheikhs in the middle-east or to other money-magnet of our world for forced domestic or brothel servitude, while keeping the outlaws, the pimps and the odious "sheikhs" out of the loop of laws, and threatening the victims by using the "hudood" laws or scaring them for their illegal immigrant status point toward a dysfunctional "civilization" where the world, the all pampered "free world" keeps numb or utter the weakest protest as a mere token for the sake of political gain in the region.
Can the Bangladeshi female Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia or the female opposition leader Sheikh Hasina undertake any concrete initiative for these poor women languishing in vain? What is the purpose of United Nations? Is it for being a "vessel" for the powerful overlooking the distress of the weak or something else altogether?
Regards,
Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
July 14, 2004
Trafficking of weaker vessels
ASIF J. MIR
Women are being sold like ani-mals in Pakistani markets. Trafficking in persons – the illegal and highly profitable recruitment, transport, or sale of human beings into all forms of forced labour and servitude, including trafficking into forced marriage – is a tragic and complex human rights abuse. Like it or not, the increasing trend lays bare the sort of future we are ill fatedly going to see. Bangladeshi women are being kidnapped, married off to agents by unsuspecting parents, trafficked under false pretenses, or enticed by prospects of a better life, into brothels in Pakistan. Border police and other law enforcement agencies are well aware of the trafficking through entry points into Pakistan like Lahore, Kasur, Bahawalpur, Chhor and Badin.
In cases of women trafficking, coercive tactics are used to control women. In many cases corrupt officials facilitate the trafficking, accepting bribes to falsify documents and provide protection. Without such corruption and complicity on the part of state officials, trafficking could not thrive. Pakistan treats trafficked persons as illegal aliens, criminals, or both, exposing them to further abuse. By targeting the victims instead of the perpetrators, it thus allows the abuses to continue.
The buyers of these unfortunate women fix their prices after examining and scanning their bodies. They humiliate and sexually harass them in public. A Bengali woman can be sold in Pakistan for Rs 70,000 to 150,000 - depending on age and looks. Auctions of girls are arranged for three kinds of buyers: rich visiting Arabs (sheiks, businessmen, visitors, state-financed medical and university students), the rich local gentry, and rural farmers. Hidden in the slums of Karachi, Pakistan is a flourishing trade in young women and girls from Bangladesh. The forced trafficking of Bangladeshi women into Pakistan for the purposes of domestic or sexual slavery has been going on for at least 10 to 15 years. The majority of is lured from with promises of jobs, decent pay and a better life. They often end up in brothels in Bangladeshi paras (slums) in Karachi, although as their numbers have grown, brothels have been found in small towns throughout Pakistan.
In recent years, as the number of Bangladeshi women and girls trafficked into Pakistan has increased, the practice of selling female has become more clandestine. They are held under terrible conditions: they are not given proper food and are kept in crowded rooms. To compel the women and girls to provide the desired services, the pimps threaten to expose the women’s status as illegal immigrants or denounce them under the Hudood laws, which penalise, among other things, sex outside of marriage and impose long prison terms and severe corporal punishment. Those who resist are beaten or worse. Instead of protecting the Bangladeshi women and girls by arresting those accountable for their illegal sale and forced prostitution or forced marriage, the Pakistani government imprisons the luckless women while allowing most brokers and pimps to go free.
In many cases Bangladeshi women and girls arrested by police in raids on brothels suffer prolonged detention, usually because they lack legal counsel or the financial resources to pay bail or surety. In other cases, the police allows pimps to bail out the women and take them back to the prostitution dens. Meanwhile, the pimps go free. Some pimps involved in the sale of Bangladeshi women and girls are occasionally arrested by the police, not one has ever been prosecuted or punished by the government for trafficking or for any of the other abuses resulting from trafficking and forced prostitution. Thus, the government, instead of dealing with the problems, seems intent on victimizing the victims.
The 2004 Trafficking in Persons Annual Report the launching ceremony of which was performed by Secretary of State Colin Powell was recently made public. With respect to Pakistan the Report notes that the arrests and conviction, a number of cases may be smuggling, the law enforcement officials do not often distinguish between trafficking and smuggling. It says that Pakistan is a source, transit, and destination country for trafficked persons. Women and girls are trafficked to Pakistan from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, Burma, Nepal, and Central Asia for forced commercial sexual exploitation and bonded labor. Girls and women from rural areas are trafficked to urban centers for commercial sexual exploitation and labor. Women trafficked from East Asian countries and Bangladesh to the Middle East often transit through Pakistan. Like other South Asian countries including India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan, Pakistan is placed on Tier 2 Watch List this year “because of a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year.”
Pakistan does not consistently differentiate between trafficking and smuggling so actual rates of prosecution are difficult to determine. Lack of resources also limits victim assistance efforts. Government officials greatly need training on the distinction between trafficking and smuggling.
Source Link: http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/july-2004/14/EDITOR/op2.asp
Exploitation of "weaker vessels", poor women from the poor nations, enslaving them, auctioning them after examining their bodies in open market like soon to be slaughtered animals for religious creed, and selling these profitable commodities to rich Arab sheikhs in the middle-east or to other money-magnet of our world for forced domestic or brothel servitude, while keeping the outlaws, the pimps and the odious "sheikhs" out of the loop of laws, and threatening the victims by using the "hudood" laws or scaring them for their illegal immigrant status point toward a dysfunctional "civilization" where the world, the all pampered "free world" keeps numb or utter the weakest protest as a mere token for the sake of political gain in the region.
"A Bengali woman can be sold in Pakistan for Rs 70,000 to 150,000 - depending on age and looks. Auctions of girls are arranged for three kinds of buyers: rich visiting Arabs (sheiks, businessmen, visitors, state-financed medical and university students), the rich local gentry, and rural farmers. Hidden in the slums of Karachi, Pakistan is a flourishing trade in young women and girls from Bangladesh."
Can the Bangladeshi female Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia or the female opposition leader Sheikh Hasina undertake any concrete initiative for these poor women languishing in vain? What is the purpose of United Nations? Is it for being a "vessel" for the powerful overlooking the distress of the weak or something else altogether?
Regards,
Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
July 14, 2004
Trafficking of weaker vessels
ASIF J. MIR
Women are being sold like ani-mals in Pakistani markets. Trafficking in persons – the illegal and highly profitable recruitment, transport, or sale of human beings into all forms of forced labour and servitude, including trafficking into forced marriage – is a tragic and complex human rights abuse. Like it or not, the increasing trend lays bare the sort of future we are ill fatedly going to see. Bangladeshi women are being kidnapped, married off to agents by unsuspecting parents, trafficked under false pretenses, or enticed by prospects of a better life, into brothels in Pakistan. Border police and other law enforcement agencies are well aware of the trafficking through entry points into Pakistan like Lahore, Kasur, Bahawalpur, Chhor and Badin.
In cases of women trafficking, coercive tactics are used to control women. In many cases corrupt officials facilitate the trafficking, accepting bribes to falsify documents and provide protection. Without such corruption and complicity on the part of state officials, trafficking could not thrive. Pakistan treats trafficked persons as illegal aliens, criminals, or both, exposing them to further abuse. By targeting the victims instead of the perpetrators, it thus allows the abuses to continue.
The buyers of these unfortunate women fix their prices after examining and scanning their bodies. They humiliate and sexually harass them in public. A Bengali woman can be sold in Pakistan for Rs 70,000 to 150,000 - depending on age and looks. Auctions of girls are arranged for three kinds of buyers: rich visiting Arabs (sheiks, businessmen, visitors, state-financed medical and university students), the rich local gentry, and rural farmers. Hidden in the slums of Karachi, Pakistan is a flourishing trade in young women and girls from Bangladesh. The forced trafficking of Bangladeshi women into Pakistan for the purposes of domestic or sexual slavery has been going on for at least 10 to 15 years. The majority of is lured from with promises of jobs, decent pay and a better life. They often end up in brothels in Bangladeshi paras (slums) in Karachi, although as their numbers have grown, brothels have been found in small towns throughout Pakistan.
In recent years, as the number of Bangladeshi women and girls trafficked into Pakistan has increased, the practice of selling female has become more clandestine. They are held under terrible conditions: they are not given proper food and are kept in crowded rooms. To compel the women and girls to provide the desired services, the pimps threaten to expose the women’s status as illegal immigrants or denounce them under the Hudood laws, which penalise, among other things, sex outside of marriage and impose long prison terms and severe corporal punishment. Those who resist are beaten or worse. Instead of protecting the Bangladeshi women and girls by arresting those accountable for their illegal sale and forced prostitution or forced marriage, the Pakistani government imprisons the luckless women while allowing most brokers and pimps to go free.
In many cases Bangladeshi women and girls arrested by police in raids on brothels suffer prolonged detention, usually because they lack legal counsel or the financial resources to pay bail or surety. In other cases, the police allows pimps to bail out the women and take them back to the prostitution dens. Meanwhile, the pimps go free. Some pimps involved in the sale of Bangladeshi women and girls are occasionally arrested by the police, not one has ever been prosecuted or punished by the government for trafficking or for any of the other abuses resulting from trafficking and forced prostitution. Thus, the government, instead of dealing with the problems, seems intent on victimizing the victims.
The 2004 Trafficking in Persons Annual Report the launching ceremony of which was performed by Secretary of State Colin Powell was recently made public. With respect to Pakistan the Report notes that the arrests and conviction, a number of cases may be smuggling, the law enforcement officials do not often distinguish between trafficking and smuggling. It says that Pakistan is a source, transit, and destination country for trafficked persons. Women and girls are trafficked to Pakistan from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, Burma, Nepal, and Central Asia for forced commercial sexual exploitation and bonded labor. Girls and women from rural areas are trafficked to urban centers for commercial sexual exploitation and labor. Women trafficked from East Asian countries and Bangladesh to the Middle East often transit through Pakistan. Like other South Asian countries including India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan, Pakistan is placed on Tier 2 Watch List this year “because of a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year.”
Pakistan does not consistently differentiate between trafficking and smuggling so actual rates of prosecution are difficult to determine. Lack of resources also limits victim assistance efforts. Government officials greatly need training on the distinction between trafficking and smuggling.
Source Link: http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/july-2004/14/EDITOR/op2.asp
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