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US blacklists Pakistan on human trafficking

Aziz Haniffa
India Abroad Correspondent in Washington

As if Pakistan did not already have enough problems in its relations with the United States, the Bush administration blacklisted it on Thursday along with 22 other countries for failing to tackle human trafficking, which Washington describes as "a modern-day form of slavery".

Islamabad, however, is in the company of some of Washington's major allies like Israel, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Greece.

All have been lumped into the Tier 3 category of countries that "don't comply and are not making significant efforts to do so" in accordance with the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act approved by Congress last year.

By this act, Congress mandated the state department to bring out an annual 'trafficking in persons' report with a view to withholding US aid from countries that do not adequately address the issue by 2003.

India, the rest of South Asia, China, France and Japan are in the Tier 2 category of "countries that don't fully comply, but are making significant efforts to comply".

Tier 1 comprises "those countries that comply fully with the standards laid out in the act" and includes, among others, Britain, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and Taiwan.

The United States was not ranked in the report, but Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, who held a press conference after Secretary of State Colin Powell released the report and made an opening statement, acknowledged that "corrective measures" were needed in this country also.

The report said, "Pakistan is a source, transit, and destination country for an increasing number of trafficked persons."

"Women and children are trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation, bonded labour, and domestic servitude to the Middle East," it said.

The report also said that Pakistan "is a source country for young boys who are kidnapped or bought and sent to work as camel jockeys in the Gulf states. Women and children are trafficked from East Asian countries and Bangladesh through Pakistan to the Middle East."

"Pakistan serves as a destination point for women who are trafficked from Bangladesh, Burma, Afghanistan and the Central Asian states," it said. "There is also evidence of trafficking within Pakistan."

The report complained that the Government of Pakistan "does not yet fully meet the minimum standards and the government has not yet made significant efforts to combat trafficking, due to pervasive corruption, lack of information and data on the problem, and a severe lack of resources".

While acknowledging that the Pakistani constitution prohibits slavery and forced labour and asserts the inviolability of the dignity of man and the equality of all citizens, the report, however, noted that the "Hudood ordinances criminalize extramarital sexual relations and place a burden on female rape victims because testimony of female victims and witnesses carry no legal weight".

Thus, it pointed out that if a "woman brings charges of rape to court and the case cannot be proved, the court automatically takes the rape victim's allegation as a confession of her own complicity and acknowledgement of consensual adultery".

Consequently, the report said, "these laws discourage trafficking victims from bringing forward charges, and many trafficking victims are detained, jailed, and prosecuted for violations of Hudood ordinances and illegal status."

India, the report said, "is a source, transit and destination country for trafficked persons" and noted that "internal trafficking of Indian women and children is widespread".

"India is a destination country for Nepali and Bangladeshi women and girls for forced labour and prostitution" and, to a lesser extent, India "is a country of origin for women and children trafficked to other countries in Asia, the Middle East and the West", it added.

The report also said that India "serves as a transit point for Bangladeshi girls and women trafficked for sexual exploitation in Pakistan and boys trafficked to the Gulf States to work as camel jockeys".

It said that while New Delhi "does not yet meet the minimum standards of the act passed by the US Congress", the government is making significant efforts to combat trafficking in persons.

"The central Government recognises the trafficking problem, but is severely underfunded and typically unable to implement plans and initiatives with which it agrees," the report said.

Powell said, "We hope that this report will help to focus international attention on this abhorrent practice and galvanise systematic worldwide efforts to combat it."

"It is incomprehensible that trafficking in human beings should be taking place in the 21st century -- incomprehensible, but it's true, very true," he said.

The secretary added, "Our report should make it abundantly clear that trafficking is going on all over the world, in both developed and developing countries, even within the United States."

He declared that "the only way to effectively address the worldwide problem of trafficking is through collective efforts by all countries, whether they are countries of origin, transit or destination, and by being brutally honest about this issue."

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