ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wed­nesday asked the respondents for concise statements detailing measures taken to curb human smuggling and data on out-of-school children.

During the hearing of a petition moved by Lawyer for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA) president Zia Ahmed Awan, the Greek migrant boat tragedy, which left 300 Pakistanis dead on June 14, resonated in the court with Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial deploring how innocent people were duped by human traffickers on a promise of greener pastures abroad.

“This is a matter of human rights,” observed the CJP.

The observation came when Zulfi­kar Ahmad Bhutto, who appeared on behalf of Mr Awan, expressed the fear that kidnapping of children from 2017 to 2018 had scaled up, possibly due to illegal trade of body organs. The petition highlighted lack of data about street children and government effo­rts to eradicate child trafficking as well as child protection mechanism.

The CJP recalled how he had noticed a similar trend in the South African countries where the trade of human body organs was rampant.

Alluding to the Greek tragedy, he regretted that poor people were forced to pay millions to human traffickers. Even children and women were becoming victim of human trafficking, he said, wondering whether the government had any statistics on the number of children being smuggled.

Justice Bandial regretted about ambiguities in the relevant 2018 laws, adding that primary issue was the lack of a specialist force for the implementation of these laws since police had been employed in stopping human smuggling.

The court asked the respondents nominated in the petition to furnish within a month concise statements with directions to the provinces to come up with measures taken to curb human smuggling and the data on out-of-school children.

The LHRLA in its petition highlighted that cases of missing, trafficked and kidnapped beggars and street children were rapidly increasing across the country and thus become a sou­r­­ce of great mental agony for people. But the efficiency of the respondents in tackling the issue was not up to the mark as they have failed in taking preventive measures or rescue operations against those involved in the heinous crime.

The petition named 37 respondents right from the ministry of inter-provincial coordination to the ministry of interior, Nadra, FIA, the child protection and welfare bureau, provincial social welfare and Baitul Maal departments, police, women development departments, home departments, human rights commission etc.

According to the petition, the ratio of trafficking of minors was much higher, rather increased tremendously in 2016. The petitioner recalled how in 2016, the Madadgar helpline dealt with two minor girls, who were trafficked from Karachi to Jhal Magsi, and regretted how the case study reflected lack of system among provincial governments to provide relief to victim families by taking punitive actions against the culprits, though the actual abettors and culprits were never arrested.

The petition regretted that over a million street children exist in Pakistan but the resp­o­ndent governments have failed to register them thus endangering their lives and denying them rights to education, health and citizenship.

Federal and provincial budgetary allocations for the protection of children are very nominal and mostly utilised in the salaries and administrative costs. Funds worth millions from international donors, ADP schemes and United Nations were allocated but no significant improvement has ever been noticed.

After the 18th Amendment, the federal and provincial governments were supposed to adopt National Plan of Action 2008 and the National Policy on Children but utterly failed, the petition argued.

The petition also highlighted that after the ban on camel jockeys, several children were brought back from UAE and funds were provided for rehabilitation of these children and their families. However, it deplored, no such schemes were available to rehabilitate the children on the streets or missing or have been trafficked or kidnapped.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2023