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19 smuggled Pak kids head home

Out of the 19 children, 10 had valid passports while nine were issued outpasses by the Pakistan Consulate here, said Pakistani Human Rights Activist and Advocate Ansar Burney whose visit was meant to rescue the kidnapped children and send them back to their ‘original’ parents in Pakistan.

Speaking to Khaleej Times, Pakistani Consul-General Amanullah Larik confirmed that nine outpasses had been issued for the children while five adults would accompany them. “The children were brought to the consulate last night and the consulate staff issued outpasses for them on a priority basis,” he said.

Shafi Samana, President of Pakistan Association, Dubai, said that the association had arranged for the air tickets for the nine children and five adults. “As part of its efforts to help the needy Pakistanis in the UAE, the association has donated the tickets to the 14 people from its welfare fund,” he said.

“The whole exercise was not possible without the help of the government authorities who helped us trace the children from all over the emirates. The cooperation of the Pakistan Embassy in Abu Dhabi, Pakistan Consulate in Dubai and the Pakistan Association is laudable due to which I have been able to take these children back to Pakistan,” said Mr Burney.

The 19 children had either been kidnapped or sold by the parents and brought to the UAE from the rural areas of Punjab including Dera Ghazi Khan and Multan, he said. “Five adults claiming to be the parents of the children are also being sent to Pakistan. “Whether their claims are true or not will be verified once we get back to Pakistan,” said Mr Burney adding that the tedious and heart wrenching process of finding the true parents of the children would start once the children are back in Pakistan and are in a state to talk.

Placing the blame on child trafficking in third world countries, Mr Burney said that the issue has to be tackled at its root cause.

“In Pakistan, parents of such children are either duped by unscrupulous agents who claim to “adopt” the child, or in many cases, parents sell off their children for money,” he explained.

“Corruption and poverty led the poor parents to sell off their offspring, which is a very sad problem,” he said.

Describing the condition of the children, Mr Burney said that the children had been brain-washed and were made to believe that the people accompanying them were their true parents.

“The modus operandi of these ‘agents’ is that after the kidnap or purchase of the children, they get them endorsed in the mother’s passport or get a separate passport for the child after which the child can travel internationally with his ‘parents’ without arousing any suspicion.

Giving a background of the child trafficking issue Mr Burney said that children were trafficked from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and several countries in Africa and brought to the Middle Eastern countries for several reasons.

Mr Burney’s Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International (ABWTI) has successfully traced out more than 82,000 children from the world over through its ‘Bureau of Missing and Kidnapped Persons’ and has delivered them safely to their families.

• UAE