Sir: It has taken Pakistan over 70 years to legislate against Human Trafficking. Regardless, the Senate of Pakistan deserves kudos for this belated bill. One only hopes that this bill is implemented with the full might of the state, because those involved in this criminal activity are very powerful individuals. Mere enactment of laws alone does not deter criminals. It is implementation across the board by the state, which serves to prevent crimes. Thousands of poor Pakistanis have been robbed of their lifelong savings and lured to embark on one way ticket to unknown graves, while beneficiaries of this criminal activity, whose identity is known to law enforcement agencies, lead lives of luxury. To date, none of these scoundrels has ever been punished. Human trafficking cannot take place on such a large scale without the connivance of law enforcement such as the FIA, Coast Guard, Border Security and other agencies deployed to prevent these crimes. While on this subject of human trafficking, what about the shameful episode where over 4,000 citizens of Pakistan were handed over by the Musharraf junta to America and its allies in exchange for bounty money? This crime has been confirmed recently by Retired Justice Javed Iqbal, who headed a commission on missing persons. This is even worse than the heinous crime of human trafficking especially if members of paid state security services were involved. Constitution of Pakistan prohibits handing over citizens of this country to any foreign nation. Laws exist in this country to try the accused in courts of law. It is only in rare circumstances that a citizen of Pakistan can be handed over to another country for crimes committed on their soil after the due process of law has been completed, and even then only if a mutual treaty exists between two countries. MALIK TARIQ ALI Lahore Published in Daily Times, May 17th 2018.