Focus on illegal labour migration

Ershaad, 24, still hangs on tightly to his passport. On one of its pages, it bears a visa apparently issued by the Embassy of Greece in Islamabad, permitting him to enter the country. A bolder, red stamp, emblazoned across it states that Ershaad was deported from Greece late last year. "I paid nearly Rs 400,000 [US $6,700] for this," he told IRIN, sadly gazing at the now much-handled passport.

"I almost starved in a truck as I was transported to Turkey, across Iran, and then onto Greece," he added. Ershaad, along with about six other men, two Bangladeshis and four Pakistanis, were arrested as they made their way to the Greek coast in search of work, and sent back to their respective countries. "Now we have nothing. I paid all we could afford for this passport, but the visa had been faked and the agent has since disappeared," said Ershaad, sitting at the doorstep of the dilapidated family home on the outskirts of the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.

His aged mother huddles over an oil stove inside the one-room building, and his father, apparently suffering from tuberculosis, lies on a traditional string bed outside. "All I wanted was to pay for their treatment and to provide them something more than this," said Ershaad gesturing at the house. He holds an intermediate education certificate, but has failed over five years to find a job.

POVERTY DRIVING MIGRATION

His story is not an uncommon one. Last year alone, according to Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) estimates, nearly 15,000 Pakistanis who had tried to make it abroad illegally were returned to the country.

Newspaper pictures of groups returned home from the Middle East, sitting dejectedly in groups, or of families forced back from the US, covering their faces as press cameras flashed, have remained a regular feature over the past few years.
While the Ministry of Labour and Overseas Pakistanis in Islamabad estimates that 150,000 people, often the most highly skilled and qualified, leave the country legally each year, it is thought up to four or five times that number may be attempting to leave through illegal means.

The risks they run are immense. Between 2000 and 2005, at least 200 Pakistanis are thought to have perished while attempting to enter other countries without valid documents. Many died when unseaworthy vessels capsized at sea. Others, such as the six Pakistani immigrants shot dead in 2001 by Macedonian authorities, and then passed off as terrorists, suffered a still more tragic fate.

"What choice do they have? Many can find no jobs, and wish to escape the endless grind of poverty and dejection," I.A. Rehman, HRCP director, told IRIN. Despite the fact that so many are forced home, to lives made even grimmer than before their departure by the sums squandered on false documents and by the sense of failure, others continue to try to leave.

With unemployment unofficially estimated at close to 14 percent, many are convinced they have no future in the country. Even those who are able to secure jobs often find salaries bear no relation to the cost of living in Pakistan. "I have a job as a driver with a private employer. I am well treated, and I earn Rs 4,000 [$67] a month. This is the usual pay. But my utility bills at times total over Rs 2,000 alone, even though we use barely two light bulbs and a black and white TV. How can I possibly survive?" asked Ahmeddin, 39.

THE ILLEGAL METHOD

He, with the help of a cousin who is already in the UK, is attempting to migrate overseas, and is in touch with an ‘agent’ who has promised to help him. Like many others, the agent Ahmeddin has been put in touch with, is based in Gujrat. The small, congested industrial town, in the heart of the Punjab, once known as a place where fans and fine crockery were produced, is now equally well known as a centre for human smuggling.

Dozens of falsified visas, passports, letters and other documents are produced daily in tiny offices and presses located in the dingy back streets of the town. Many are good enough to fool even the expert eye. People, especially young men, flock in hundreds to the offices of ‘recruiters' each week, attempting to travel abroad. The most unscrupulous have been known to collect thousands of US dollars from each individual, promising papers within a few months, and then simply pocketing the money and vanishing.

The trade is, as such, a hugely lucrative one. Ahmed Bilal, a lawyer in Gujrat, who has been approached by persons conned into parting with large sums of money in exchange for travel documents, says: "It is now harder and harder for Pakistanis to get visas. Since they have no success at the foreign missions in Islamabad, they come here to try and obtain the documents they need."

He also told IRIN: "Getting relief through the legal system, once someone has been tricked into handing over money, is not easy. It can take years, and many times the people are not even apprehended." It is also widely suspected that police, Pakistani passport office officials and possibly even politicians, may be involved in the lucrative trade. Stolen, blank Pakistani passports that have mysteriously vanished from government offices have been known to turn up in Gujrat.

"While there is so much desperation to go abroad, to escape hopelessness and poverty and poor schools and hospitals, very little can be done to tackle human smuggling. It is not simply a policing issue, and should not be seen as one," Rehman said. He maintained far more 'holistic' policies were needed to tackle the root causes of the issue.

This, as things stand, is unlikely to happen in the short term. The latest State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) report has indicated that unemployment and inflation are in fact both on the rise. As such, people will continue to be exploited by smugglers, who promise them a life of comparative luxury abroad. Many are ready to risk boarding illegally run ships or attempting to cross perilous mountains on foot to reach destinations where they hope they can live a better life.