Bar on profiling dents FIA’s ability to check human trafficking

LAHORE
The revelation of Ali Pathan, an alleged ringleader of a gang which smuggled over 100 young girls to Gulf States for dance and prostitution, has raised a question whether the FIA Immigration Staff deployed at airports in the country has any authority to stop human trafficking.
The FIA officials, however, have claimed that there is no law to stop such girls from travelling abroad if they have valid travel documents and visas. They said the process of checking and preventing human trafficking had become difficult since 2014 when the then FIA director general had stopped the immigration officials from profiling the suspect passengers.
The DG, they added, stopped the profiling with a view to addressing the complaints against the immigration officials involved in minting huge money from the practice.
Talking to The News on Monday, Director FIA, Punjab, Dr Usman Anwar confirmed that the former DG, Ghalib Ali Bandesha, had in writing stopped the FIA from profiling soon after he assumed the charge in 2014.
“Profiling means details immigration staff gathered from the suspects after grilling them at the airports including their hotel stay, show-money, the types of visa (work, travel, etc) and destiny and the host”, Usman explained, adding the practice of profiling of suspected persons was very complicated.
“To check every girl at airports would be a messy stuff as a lot of young girls go abroad to see their parents, study purpose and recreation”, he said and added the FIA could deal with smuggling of young girls to other countries only on a tip-off, otherwise, the agency did have no legal/moral ground to stop them at airports.
Efforts were also made to contact Ghalib Ali Bandesha, former FIA DG, and incumbent Narcotics Federal Secretary, and incumbent FIA DG, Akbar Khan Hoti, through text messages and calls, but they did not respond till filing of the report on Tuesday.
Talking to The News, human rights activist and Chairman of Ansar Burney Trust International, Ansar Burney said he alarmed the FIA DG on a number of occasions about the increasing ratio of smuggling of young girls to the Middle East for prostitution and forced labour. He said majority of these young girls, used for prostitution, belonged to rural areas, adding, “Even young girls who go for Umra are used for these purposes”.
Praising the efforts of the Lahore FIA, Ansar Burney said the FIA could check travel documents of young girls including their job documents at airports to check prostitution. He added FIA should strictly check the agents of those girls who sent them to the ME on ‘work’ visa. Coordination at international level involving from visa issuance and purposes of travel was also needed in controlling smuggling of girls, he maintained.
It is pertinent to mention here that a team of the Lahore FIA conducted a raid at a two-room flat near Shah Noor Studios and arrested four alleged human smugglers Ali Pathan, Liaquat Ali, Shahbaz Ali Khan and Husnain Basharat, who smuggled over 100 young girls to the ME for club dance, prostitution and night functions.
During the raid, the FIA team recovered 31 passports of young girls, 57 video cassettes, 180 photographs, albums, DVDs, fake medial certificates, computers, 47 stamp papers, etc, from the flat. The FIA registered FIR 296/15 under sections including 17/18/22/Emigration Ordinance (EO) 1979, 6PA, 1974, 3/4 Human Trafficking Ordinance (HTO) 2002 and PPC 34 against the accused.
It is worth mentioning that Section 3 of the HTO, 2002, which was made part of the FIR, deals with the punishment for those human traffickers who knowingly purchase, sell, harbour, transport, provide, detain or obtain a child or a woman through coercion, kidnapping or abduction, or by giving or receiving any benefit for trafficking him or her into or out of Pakistan or with intention thereof, for the purpose of exploitative entertainment by any person and have received or expect to receive some benefit in lieu thereof shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to fine.
During the investigations Ali Pathan and Liaqat Ali revealed that they smuggled over 100 and 25 young girls to Gulf States, respectively during the past few years. They said majority of those girls was smuggled from the Allama Iqbal Airport, Lahore.
The FIA investigators recovered 22 air-tickets, 44 passports, 29 visas and 25 affidavits and a hard disk of a computer from the accused.
All the tickets, they said, were destined from Lahore to Gulf States. The investigators also revealed that the alleged human smugglers had no employment protector for sending the young girls to Dubai on ‘work’ visas. According to them, they raided other places to arrest the co-accused and an alleged client, Sajid Mughal, a hotel owner in Dubai.
A month ago FIA officials had arrested an alleged human smuggler, Asif Ali, along with two young girls Nagina and Sheena from the Lahore Airport when they were proceeding to Dubai.
After the arrest of Pathan, Liaqat Ali and Asif Ali from Lahore within a one month time, it has become evident that majority of young girls were being smuggled to ME from the Lahore Airport.
It is also important to note that two young girls named Hina Basharat, 25, and Sunaina Basharat, real sisters, who were arrested along with Pathan had visited the Gulf States thrice in the past few months, all from Lahore Airport. (The names of the girls have been changed to hide their identity).