Bob51
Seaman
Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 156
Location: Belfast
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 Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2005 2:24 am Post subject: Maybe the WWF should diversify into this business. |
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Activist shareholders should both get a good return and improve conditions for the bonded six-year olds.
http://asia.scmp.com/asianews/ZZZ3I26F4AE.html
| Quote: | Friday, June 24, 2005
PAKISTAN
Home alone for the child jockeys
Repatriated from gulf state, their parents failed to claim them
They have returned home from a brutal life in the United Arab Emirates, but 22 Pakistani children who worked as camel jockeys have still not been claimed by their parents.
The youngsters, aged from six to 17, who flew into the eastern city of Lahore on Tuesday, were the first to be repatriated under an agreement between the UN Children's Fund and the governments of Pakistan and the Gulf sheikhdom.
However, there were no family members there to welcome the children after their absences of two to seven years, and a Pakistani court had no choice but to order on Wednesday that they be kept in a protection centre.
"None of the parents or guardians approached us to get their kids back," said Shazia Ijaz, the centre's manager, as the children sat in the city's Child Protection Court and stared at the judge.
Judge Ahmed Nawaz Ranjha directed police to locate their parents and guardians and also asked the welfare groups to help rehabilitate the children in their home towns.
"The parents of the kids can get custody of their children through legal procedures," the judge said.
But their plight has touched Judge Ranjha, who is not unaccustomed to stories of hardship in Pakistan, where child labour remains common and a third of the population lives below the poverty line.
"I have seen a documentary on a camel race. The camel runs when the child jockeys cry. If they fall off the camel's back, it is a miracle for them to survive."
Most of the children, who are now fluent in Arabic, do not even know who their fathers and mothers are, Ms Ijaz said. But she believes the majority are from the dusty desert town of Rahim Yar Khan, in Pakistan's central Punjab province.
Poor parents from the backward region have in the past reportedly sold their children to human traffickers for as little as US$2,100.
Six-year-old Suleman said he knew nothing about his father but remembers his home town is Rahim Yar Khan.
Ghulam Abbas, eight, said he stayed in Dubai for three years. "My father's name is Muhammad Abbas. But I don't know where I was born and where my home is in Pakistan," he said.
The United Arab Emirates signed a repatriation pact with Unicef last month, less than a month after a ban on using any jockeys who are aged under 16 and who weigh less than 45kg came into force.
It now plans to mount robot jockeys on racing camels later this year, after becoming the second state in the region after Qatar to test them in April.
Children have reportedly been injured and killed in races either from being tossed by the animal or being dragged along after being partially dislodged from the rope binding them to the animals.
Faiza Asghar, adviser to the government of Punjab province, said about 2,800 child camel racers were still in the United Arab Emirates, 70 per cent of whom were Pakistani. Others were from Sudan, Bangladesh, Mauritius and India, Ms Asghar said. |
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