PESHAWAR: Speakers at a seminar on human trafficking stressed the need for legislation on internal human trafficking in order to prevent the issues of exploitation especially pertaining to women, children and other vulnerable segments of the society.
The seminar was organised by End Violence Against Women and Girls Alliance (EVAWGA) here at Peshawar Press Club (PPC) on Tuesday.
Notable speakers at the seminar included EVAWGA Alliance Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) Co-chairman Fida Jan, Akbar Ali, senior journalist Faridullah Khan, and civil society representative Saifur Rehman Durrani. The speakers expressed grave concern over increasing human trafficking, particularly of women and girls in the name of marriage and jobs and other activities.
Speaking on the occasion, Faridullah Khan said that cases of human trafficking were reported from across the country while most of them occurred in FATA and KP as the two regions had been facing unstable situation for decades. He added that thousands of women became widows and children became orphans in these war-struck areas, therefore, making them more vulnerable as a lack of source of income for these people allowed the traffickers to easily misguide them in the garb of wedding and jobs.
“As per data of government agencies, from 2015 to 2017, approximately 368 women and girls across the province fell prey to human trafficking in which 126 travelling agencies were involved,” he claimed, and added that if there was a law, no one could dare to deceive them.
Akbar Khan on the occasion the definition of trafficking has already been provided under PECTO 2002 but it addresses only the victims of external trafficking. Therefore, there is a dire need for a law which prevents internal issues of exploitation, he said, adding that in the absence of this definition, under any law, the victim of trafficking may not be redressed.
Fida said that due to absence of a law regarding prevention of internal human trafficking, there is no authentic data of victims of human trafficking and the issue has reached a high level.
The speakers urged the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led KP government to make legislations to prevent human trafficking, adding that KP would be the first province if it enacted anti-human trafficking law.