Pakistan seminar reviews human trafficking

(May 18, 2012) Caritas Pakistan is warning youths to be on their guard against employment agents offering attractive job opportunities, saying they are likely members of human trafficking gangs. “We are talking about eight million young Pakistanis who are vulnerable to such networks. Poor families must be educated and stopped from putting the honour and lives of their loved ones in jeopardy,” said Riaz Nawab, a program coordinator for Caritas Pakistan, the social arm of the country’s Catholic Church. He was speaking at a two-day workshop aimed at combating human trafficking. More than 100 youths, most of them women, attended the event which concluded on Wednesday at Christ the King Seminary in Karachi. The workshop included inputs on human trafficking in Karachi and in South Asia, as well information on the plight of young girls forced into prostitution. Caritas Pakistan Karachi chairman, Father Saleh Diego, said the high cost of living, poverty and unemployment make people easy prey and are providing a brisk trade for traffickers. According to a US State Department report released last year, much of Pakistan’s human trafficking problem is centred on bonded labour (about 1.8 million people) working in agriculture and brick-making in Sindh and Punjab provinces.