A large family size, structural and seasonal unemployment, upward moving prices of food items, lack of social safety nets and endemic poverty is forcing many families in Pakistan to sell their children. News channels and papers have especially been displaying such tragic tales of poor families for the last two years and now these stories have become a routine rather than the exception for television viewers in Pakistan.
A private TV channel reporter observed that; initially, I thought that it was another gimmick of professional beggars to get some money but frequent occurrence of such cases and even in some cases when parents left their children in local hospitals and Edhi home, a local charity, forced me to rethink my position. He added, my interaction with some poverty-stricken parents has revealed to me that changing economic realities and food insecurity have made a large population of Pakistani children extremely vulnerable and children in this country are literally for sale.
I have investigated some cases, with the help of local journalists, and found that electronic media coverage helped families to get some financial and moral support either from any government representative or local philanthropist, a Field Coordinator of a child focused organization informed and added that, however, the nature of support, in all such cases, is mostly one time and often not adequate enough for the family to sustain for a longer time.
At the same time rural based families have no access to electronic media; therefore, they dont find any temporary relief and have no option left but to send their children to cities for any sort of dirty or dangerous work, a Hyderabad, Sindh, based journalist observed.
It has become a common practice in many parts of the country that children are sent to small factories, roadside hotels, mechanic shops, and houses by their parents who in exchange receive an amount which is often very minimal. In other instances, particularly in remote areas of the country, parents often take advances, an amount ranging from 1000 to 3000 rupees, from middlemen and the children are supposed to pay off the loan from their wages. The parents inability to feed their children and dependence on advances has increased the incidence of child bonded labour in manifolds, a human rights activist observed.
International, regional and national legislations define that trafficking of children is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of children for the purpose of exploitation. Such exploitation includes forcing young children into all imaginable forms of physical or sexual exploitation, a human rights lawyer informed and added that, no doubt the impact of international and national economic crisis has severely reduced employment opportunities for adult Pakistani males and helped increasing the vulnerability of millions of our children to physical and sexual exploitation.
It is a fact that children often suffer abusive conditions as beating, bashing and scolding are the norms of work environment for majority of children. The employers are free to mistreat as children are absolutely at their mercy. In such places children are forcibly confined for indefinite period and have no option to make any contact with outside world.
Involvement of children in labour is also a flagrant violation of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) and other international Protocols and Conventions to whom Pakistan is already a signatory. On the issue of child trafficking, Article. 35 of UN CRC states that: States Parties shall take all appropriate, national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent the abduction of, the sale of or traffic in children for any purpose or in any form.
Pakistans Prevention and Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance 2002 stated, human trafficking means obtaining, securing, selling, purchasing, recruiting, detaining, harbouring or receiving a person, notwithstanding his implicit or explicit consent, by the use of coercion, kidnapping, abduction, or by giving or receiving any payment or benefit, or sharing or receiving a share for such persons subsequent transportation out of or into Pakistan by any means whatsoever for any of the purposes.
The 2002 Ordinance clearly restricted the selling, purchasing and recruiting of children and even parents are liable if they commit such act; however, all such things are happening in daylight and our children are for sale, a child rights activist said and added, it is not only the responsibility of government to curb such heinous practices but all components of civil society including media should help in combating all forms of child trafficking.
A labour rights activist observed that, its totally a false impression that poor parents handover their children only for financial benefits. This may be one of the reasons but in many cases parents inability to provide basic food to their children caused extreme guilt that forced them to handover their children to recruiters with a hope that their child may get a proper two-time meal.
In recent times, food insecurity has appeared as one of the most visible problems in Pakistan. International aid agencies have predicted that almost half of the countrys population is at the risk of food insecurity. A leading international development consultant observed that, the upward moving prices of food items and diminishing employment opportunities have made poor people impossible to feed their children properly. He added that, it is estimated that the purchasing power of poor has gone by fifty percent.
It is heartening that successive Pakistani governments brought strict legislation and formulated effective implementation mechanism that successfully helped to curb the menace of child trafficking for the purpose of camel jockeying in Gulf States. However, the changing patterns of child trafficking bring new challenges to the government and civil society organizations.
There is a dire need to devise strategies to tackle the such as food insecurity and unemployment. Government in coordination with International aid agencies must plan and invest substantially in poverty-stricken areas to minimize the unemployment and incidence of food insecurity.
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