Officials dismissive of US report on human trafficking

Pakistan government officials have dismissed claims made in a US State Department report that not enough was being done to counter the phenomenon of human trafficking in the country. The US "Trafficking in Persons" report estimates that 700,000 people worldwide, mainly women and children, are victims of criminal trafficking every year. Pakistan is included in a list of 23 countries that were not judged to be making significant steps to rectify the problem. At the official release of the report on Thursday in Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters that "victims were lured, coerced or abducted by criminals... and subjected to toil under horrific conditions in sweatshops, on construction sites, in fields and in brothels". He said the only way to address the worldwide problem of trafficking was through collective efforts by all countries, and by being "brutally honest" about the issue. Asked to comment, the Secretary to the Pakistan Interior Ministry, Tasneem Noorani, was dismissive of stories of bonded labour, domestic servitude and sexual exploitation. "Reports of exploitation are sometimes exaggerated. I haven't seen any reports of that kind," he told IRIN. "Most illegal workers are making themselves available to local entrepreneurs," he said, adding that with foreign NGO's so sensitive to these issues, he would have expected even one case to be quickly made public. However, Noorani acknowledged that, excluding 2.2 million Afghan refugees, there were almost one million undocumented foreign workers in Pakistan. Foreign workers were attracted by the economic opportunities offered by Pakistani cities, notably Karachi, where there were large Myanmar, Bangladeshi and Afghan communities. Although a small percentage were domestic servants, most illegal migrants tried to find work in factories and small businesses. As little was known about this migrant population, the government had initiated a voluntary "national alien registration" plan as a first step to devising a national strategy, Noorani explained. Akio Nakayama, programme officer with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), welcomed the official registration of foreign workers, as the lack of reliable information on illegal migration was "a major barrier in addressing the phenomenon". He told IRIN there were "significant human trafficking issues" in Pakistan, which, as with many other countries, served as a source, destination and transit for illegal migration worldwide. "Karachi has an unknown number of undocumented, mainly Afghan or Bangladeshi, workers, and much of the illegal transiting is by Afghan refugees seeking to leave to other countries," he said. Despite this, IOM had no plans to do a detailed country study on human trafficking, as had been recently undertaken in nearby Tajikistan. Efforts have been made to stop the illegal exodus of Pakistan nationals abroad. Spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Rashid Ahmed Khan, told IRIN that illegal migration from Pakistan to the United States was virtually non-existent. "In the past [illegal] attempts were made, and we have very effective checks put in place now," he said. Reluctant to make further comment until he had seen the US report, he said the government was doing what it could to prevent human trafficking across its borders.