Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: World Day against Human Trafficking is celebrated every year on Monday to show solidarity towards the victims of human trafficking and encourage the states to take concrete steps towards curbing heinous crime of trafficking in persons.

Thousands of men, women and children fall prey to trafficking networks every year in Pakistan. The government of Pakistan over the years has shown significant improvement, yet a lot needs to be done.

This year with United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime (UNODC)’s efforts, Pakistan was finally able to enact law on Trafficking in Persons (TIP). With the passage of a new comprehensive law, the Prevention & Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance is repealed. The new TIP law specifically sets out provision to protect and non-criminalise victims, awards grave punishments to offenders specially in case of women and children and sets out provisions to raise awareness at stakeholder and public level.

UNODC Pakistan Country Representative Cesar Guedes expressed his solidarity with the victims of trafficking and appreciated steps taken by the government to tackle it. On this day, he reiterated to the international community to join hands.

“The international community must join hands to combat trafficking in persons in a comprehensive manner. There is a need to transform institutions and relevant stakeholders and put people at centre of public service. We need to mobilise the international community to empower the institutions to become innovative in their approach,” he said.

UNODC’s Country Office Pakistan (COPAK) is providing technical assistance to Pakistan in terms of capacity building of the Law Enforcement Agencies personnel through its specialised curricula designed for prosecutors and investigators and provision of operational equipment. One of the significant components of COPAK in terms of TIP is related to promoting and supporting regional cooperation for information, joint training and operational collaboration between regional and international counterpart agencies. UNODC will continue its assistance to the government with a resolve to end TIP.

This year, Pakistan has also been upgraded to Tier-2 from Watch-list by the United States Department of State. As per US State Department, Pakistan has demonstrated increasing efforts in curbing TIP this year which resulted in upgradation to Tier-2.

The Federal Investigation Agency, which is the lead agency to control TIP in Pakistan is working tirelessly on the issue. FIA has designed its Strategic Framework to Combat Human Trafficking & Migrants Smuggling. The framework outlines five strategic objectives, prevent, protect, partnership, pursue and prosecute. While all the strategic objectives are equally important and are interlinked, the framework is more victim focused.

UNODC remains committed, within the limits of its mandate, to the government and other relevant stakeholders, to provide all necessary support required to ensure that organised criminal networks are dismantled and that traffickers and migrant smugglers are brought to justice.

Published in Daily Times, July 31^st 2018.