Domestic trafficking of young girls and children has not only became a major contributor to organised sexual abuse but also a very profitable business in Pakistan. Exploitation and sexual abuse of young girls and children is rampant. To make matters worse, the power elite is involved in this heinous activity, directly or indirectly.
An appalling story appeared few days back in Daily Times title, “Gang ‘supplying girls’ to big shots unearthed.” The report revealed that a gang has been supplying poor young girls from Gilgit-Baltistan to political figures and big businessmen in Islamabad. The supply gang is orchestrated by some members of Gilgit-Baltistan legislative assembly and senior bureaucrats.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report, criminal networks operating in Pakistan generated about $927 million through human trafficking and migrant smuggling in 2013.
Educated young girls from poor strata of society are being promised and lured into such traps through disguised programmes of grants, foreign scholarships or jobs. This heinous and reprehensible crime has been going on for years in Islamabad under the nose of decision makers and security agencies, but it has been kept hushed. Possibly, videotaping and taking pictures of victims is done to blackmail them into further coercing them for abuse. The report has provided the beginning of a trial, which, if pursued diligently, can unearth the vast network that sustains trafficking of young girls for sexual exploitation.
Innocent young girls from far-flung area like Gilgit-Baltistan are easy target for such gangs and traffickers. The prevalence of trafficking can be attributed to numerous factors such as financial impediments, unavailability of educational institutions and employment opportunities in their locality.
Revelation of such scandals must shake the moral and legal fabric of our society — but, unfortunately, reaction from the Gilgit-Baltistan government and media is really disappointing. As usual, the Gilgit-Baltistan government has turned a blind eye to the scandal and issued denial statements in local newspapers and social media. Rather than calling for an impartial investigation of the story, bureaucrats have created caveats so that local newspapers do not to cover the story and even threatened the journalist to stop further reporting on the issue and publish a refutation or otherwise face consequences.
The Gilgit-Baltistan government has also tried brush it all under carpet via a powerless committee of members of the Gilgit-Baltistan assembly. As the crime has been committed in Islamabad and the case falls in the ambit of the capital authorities, hence all eyes are on the federal government, Supreme Court of Pakistan, and federal security agencies to investigate the matter, conduct the inquiry and makes its report public, and penalise the perpetrators, regardless of political affiliation. It is not out of place to mention that Gilgit-Baltistan has no law against sexual abuse and exploitation. Urgent legislation is needed not only to curb sexual abuse and exploitation but also to convict the perpetrators implicated in this debauchery so that this heinous crime can be rooted out from the society. If this is not done now then the situation will be aggravated further due to security lapses and government negligence.
It is the responsibility of human rights organisations, journalists and civil society organisations to muckrake the story of human trafficking to thwart this heinous activity. Local newspapers and media are under siege from the government and the bureaucracy, journalists are flatterers and venal in Gilgit-Baltistan, and law makers are law breakers. Revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz beautifully sums up all of this in these words, “Kise wakil karen, kis se munsifi chahen” (to whom does one turn for protection, from whom does one expect justice?).
The writer is Daily Times correspondent from Gilgit-Baltistan