Pakistani children smuggled to work as camel jockeys return home

Twenty-two Pakistani children, aged between 3 and 13 years, were repatriated yesterday from the United Arab Emirates where they had worked as jockeys in traditional camel racing, officials said.

The minister said the repatriation was carried out under a trilateral arrangement involving the governments of Pakistan and UAE and the United Nations Children Fund (Unicef).

The children were given to the care of a government-run Child Protection Bureau in the eastern city of Lahore where on arrival they were received by high officials.

Punjab province Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi said the authorities would trace the parents of the children and provide all possible assistance for their rehabilitation.

He said the children would get free education in schools at the government expense.

The chief minister said the government was taking concrete steps to put an end to the "inhuman practice" of trafficking of children through land, sea and air.

Elahi said five more centres for protection of destitute children would be set up in Punjab and it was also planned to build a hostel to accommodate 500 children.

According to Tariq Azim an estimated 3,000 children were being used as camel jockeys in the Gulf countries and that most of them were from Pakistan.

He thanked the UAE government and Unicef and said efforts were continuing to bring back all of the Pakistani children.

Poverty is said to be the main reason that is exploited by agents who pay poor families to send their children abroad for use in camel racing.

Government official Faiza Asghar said the boys, who arrived on a flight from Abu Dhabi after embassy officials had tracked them down, would be kept at the Child Protection Centre in Lahore for the time being. "Right now we don't know anything about their families, but we will try our best to trace them," she said.

In 2002, Pakistan made smuggling children abroad for use as camel riders an offence punishable by up to 10 years in prison, but the law is often flouted.

Earlier, the children were seen off at Abu Dhabi airport by officials from the Ministry of Interior, representatives of the Pakistan Embassy and Unicef. "I am very happy to be going home," said 11-year-old Jabbar, who had been working in the UAE for eight years. His mother had brought him to the UAE and left him here. When asked what he wanted to do in future, he said: "I'm not sure, maybe do something on my own, like having a small shop."