20,000 cases of domestic trafficking reported in 2018: FIA

Islamabad: At least 20,000 domestic trafficking cases were reported in 2018, with 92% of women-related incidents announced at a seminar by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Tuesday.

The seminar was co-organized by the United Nations Women's Bureau (UNSW), the Women's Status Committee (NCSW), and the Kashf Foundation.

The official said, “Women and girls are disproportionately affected by human trafficking. "

"Most of the evidence on human trafficking in Pakistan is anecdotal, but studies have been conducted on several levels, but the number of girls and women trafficked due to domestic labor, forced marriage or sexual exploitation is very difficult to confirm in this report." Added.

However, according to available data, traffickers are not always strangers, but they can be family, friends or acquaintances.

He said trafficking victims were often attracted to better employment, marriage, and a better economic outlook or were kidnapped outside the home or in public. The age of women and girls who have been trafficked ranges from 2 to 50 years.

He noted that Pakistani women are not only being pushed to poverty centers in poverty-stricken areas but also to southern Punjab and Balochistan in large cities like Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad.

There are reports of recent trafficking of young women in Pakistan as an excuse for marriage. It is clear that the scale of this problem is enormous and must be solved at all levels.

As Jamshed Kazi, head of UN Women's Pakistan, said, “We face a variety of challenges when developing our strategy to fight violence against women, prioritizing the protection of women's human rights. One such challenge is the trafficking of women and girls.

"In order for Pakistan to successfully cope with this threat, it must be changed in a way that changes the underlying social norms and behaviors so that it can adopt new behaviors and bring about social change," he said.

“These initiatives, supported by UN women in Pakistan, are a series of dramas about women's trafficking in partnership with the currently developing NCSW and Kashf Foundation. It is often known that the impact of interventions affects how the story is described, and one of the reasons is that people see drama characters as role models. ”

The seminar was attended by officials, diplomats, civil society representatives and journalists.

Two panel discussions took place during the seminar. The first debate was on the topic "The Debate of Women and Girls in Pakistan-Topics, Legislative Frameworks, and What They Are Doing to Handle It."

Panelists in this session include Khawar Mumtaz, Chair of the Women's Status Committee, Dr. Riffat Sardar, Chair of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Riaz Janjua Women's Status Committee, Federal Investigation Circle, FIA, Maliha Zia Lari Lawyer and Human Rights Activist, Paralegal Association Karachi discussion was conducted by Moneeza Hashmi of Creative Media Head Kashf Foundation Lahore.

The second panel discussion focused on “thinking through the media”. Roshaneh Zafar, Kashf Foundation, Moneeza Hashmi, Amina Mufti, writer and playwright, Saman Ahsan, Governance for Women, Human Rights and Apocalypse Violence, Executive Director UN Women Pakistan was a panelist who has been reviewed by famous TV. Hosted by Tauseeq Haider.