Human trafficking from Central Asian Countries to Pakistan is going on and highly educated girls from Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan are forced to prostitutions, the trafficking victims have said.
At least six girls, trafficked from Central Asian region, say they are doctors by profession and were offered jobs in their field in Pakistan. “But we were deceived on fake jobs offer with high incentives. We were deprived of traveling documents and passports once we arrived in Pakistan so that we could not contact law enforcement agencies,” they told Online. The girls from Uzbekistan said on condition of anonymity that they were persuaded to apply to a job in the health sector of Pakistan that apparently offered high incentives, 10 times greater than a doctor earns in their home country. “But after arriving here the person who was presenting himself as a recruiting agent snatched our documents,” they said. Uzbekistan’s embassy confirmed that they had complains of human trafficking from the country and then using them as prostitute. “Yes it is an open secret, human trafficking causes several other crimes, but we remain unaware of their identities and whereabouts,” said Lutfullah, First Secretary at Uzbekistan’s embassy said.
The Central Asian girls declined to give details of the person, who brought them to Pakistan fraudulently and then handed over to two females forcing them for prostitution.
A girl in a guest house in the capital’s F-8/3 sector told Online, “Now, I cannot go to a police station as I have no document and they (the characters involved in the crime) have threatened us of losing life if I or five others girls, two of them from Azerbaijan, cross the limits of uncovering the network”.
Three of the girls from Uzbekistan and one from Azerbaijan said that they have contacted their respective embassies to have new passports and documents but they are also delaying provision of support.
When asked for his version over the issue of helping in re-issuance of passports and documents, Lutfullah said, “Yes, usually females come to the embassy in routine claiming that their passports and travelling documents were lost. Basically the passports are being issued by Uzbekistan’s Interior Ministry and not the embassy. We deal here only in travelling documents, but we need certain proofs for issuing such documents.”
Online tried to contact the press attaché of the Azerbaijani embassy but he was not available to comment on the issue.
Meanwhile, a senior official of the FIA who was not authorised to speak to the media said that human trafficking to Pakistan is continuing from CARs and China but some time it become hard to take a step or fully stop it due to legal complexities.
“For example the immigration department is careful about issuing visas to girls from China but still human trafficking is continuing. The reason is that some Chinese workers in Pakistan show prostitutes as their wives and smuggled them here,” he further said. According to an official of FIA’s Anti Human Trafficking Cell more than 400 human traffickers involved in the heinous crime using air, land and sea routes for their activities. According to certain media reports every day 75-100 illegal immigrants are reached the country airports. There are reports that Pakistan is a destination for men, women and children from Central Asian Countries, Bangladesh and Iran who are subjected to forced labor and prostitution. According to FIA officials investigation from members of this kind of groups revealed that the three main frequent routes used by traffickers in Pakistan include Makran coast, Thar and porous border with Afghanistan, the sea routes of Karachi, Ormara, Pasni Gawadar and Jiwani are easy routes of the trafficking. Reports suggest that trafficked women are sold into brothels for $1,000 to $2,000 depending on age, beauty, race and their virginity.
