Irregular migrants face serious rights violations, says HRCP – Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on Wednesday raised alarm over serious human rights violations faced by illegal migrants in a report.

The report, Dangerous Passage: Human Smuggling in Pakistanproduced under the Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim Fellowship, the focus shifts from viewing human trafficking as merely a transnational crime to recognizing it as a critical problem of human rights violations.

The HRCP report, launched at a press conference, said victims of human trafficking were exposed to a range of abuses, including torture, extortion, blackmail, imprisonment and even death. It said irregular migration through these smuggling networks was often driven by economic desperation.

Despite this, the prevailing narrative has tended to portray such migrants as willingly accepting the dangers of illegal border crossings, thereby downplaying the severe exploitation they endure. This perception has led to people smuggling being overlooked in comparison to other exploitative practices such as human trafficking.

The report details the harrowing experience of a migrant from Punjab who enlisted the services of a smuggling network to undertake a perilous overland journey to Turkey, passing through Balochistan and Iran.

It identified unemployment, lack of opportunities, poverty, insecurity and conflict as the primary factors pushing individuals towards irregular migration. People smugglers were described as adept at targeting vulnerable young people, luring them into dangerous journeys.

The activities of these smuggling networks were highly organised and functioned as criminal organisations, often surviving through former migrants becoming smugglers.

Speakers took turns pointing out that despite the passage of the Prevention of Smuggling of Migrants Act in 2018, which gave the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) the authority to combat human trafficking, the HRCP report suggested that the transnational scale of these operations may have been facilitated by the complicity of some FIA ​​officials.

The report called on Pakistan to ratify and implement the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air. It also urged countries where migrants are going to take responsibility for protecting the rights of irregular migrants.

In addition, during the press conference, the HRCP recommended amending the Prevention of Human Trafficking Act to prioritize human rights and address the abuses that victims face during their journey.

The speakers recommended that the FIA ​​undergo major reforms to ensure accountability and tackle corruption, which has allowed smuggling networks to flourish. In the long term, the state was urged to improve economic conditions and create better opportunities to reduce the pressures that lead to irregular migration.

“Besides taking legislative and administrative measures to combat the growing human trafficking, we must also ask ourselves why young people are leaving the country despite the many dangers, and address the root causes of mass illegal migration from the country,” said former PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar, one of the keynote speakers at the press conference.

Mr. Babar said that human smuggling and trafficking was a matter of human rights and welfare. He said that the Saarc Convention on Trafficking in Women and Children, 2002 was in limbo as the state was not ready to talk about anything other than security.

The hasty expulsion of Afghan refugees recently was also motivated by so-called security concerns and, according to UN rapporteurs, resulted in the trafficking and renewed trafficking of refugees, he said.

According to him, the law adopted in 2018 to prevent migrant smuggling contained several shortcomings. He called for the law to be revised in consultation with human rights organizations, civil society organizations, academics, legislators and, above all, victims.

Published in Dawn, August 29, 2024