Pakistan International Peace & Human Rights Organization
Nindo Shaher District Badin Sindh Pakistan
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PROSTITUTION & TRAFFICKING
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SPECIFIC CONCLUSION
Preliminary findings suggest that both adolescent boys and girls are vulnerable to
exploitation and that the prime age for entry into prostitution may be the teenage
years. The problems of prostitution have been addressed not by policymakers or
national programs, but by small nongovernmental organizations involved in
protecting the rights of women and children in particular. Therefore the research is
modest, but comes from firsthand experience with victims and their rehabilitation.
In its overview of child sexual abuse and exploitation in Pakistan, the
Islamabad-based nongovernmental organization Sahil argues that existing research
is enough to demonstrate that child sexual abuse is in fact widespread in Pakistani
society but that walls of silence prevent communities and the government from
speaking out. (Sahil n.d.) Worse, child prostitution and trafficking enjoy police
protection since some police earn financial compensation from the pimps who run
the business.
It must be emphasized here that while research has provided us with
evidence that the trafficking and prostitution of boys and girls exists, we still need to
know much more about the dynamic of this social problem. That is, to what extent
are families and communities complicit in facilitating the commercial sexual
exploitation of young people, how do children and adolescents experience their
options within the trade, and how can policymakers realistically approach
reintegrating into society those who wish to leave the sex trade.
Male Child Prostitution
In Pakistan male prostitutes are believed to be cheaper for clients than female
prostitutes. The prime age for male prostitutes is 15-25. (Fayyazuddin et al. 1998) It
is likely that even less is known about their working environment and specific
problems because the social taboos for boys admitting to sex with male clients are
even greater than for girls.
Preliminary findings of Sahil�s (1998) own research into male child prostitution
in northern Punjab show that the children are usually runaways who are coerced by
local hotel owners in urban centers to exchange their bodies in return for board and
lodging. This points to the reality that children and adolescents have limited skills to
rely on to support themselves, if they need to do so, and that prostitution is often the
most practical and lucrative means of providing for themselves.
The children surveyed by Sahil allege that police and army soldiers are a
significant portion of their clientele. Children as young as age eight were found
working as male prostitutes. Although many of these young boys state that they are
free to leave whenever they wish, the combination of financial compensation (a child
prostitute can bring in up to Rs. 12,000/month) and lack of alternatives usually cause
them to stay and eventually grow up into pimps themselves.
Another practice, common in the North West Frontier Province but not yet the
subject of much formal research, is bachabazi, or older men keeping boys as their
sexual partners. A man who wishes such a partner will select a boy, usually fair of
skin and in his early teens. He will slaughter a goat in front of the boy�s house to
publicly demonstrate his choice. From that point on, the man will be responsible for
the education, clothing, and general care of the boy in return for sexual favors.
Needless to say the boy himself lacks decisionmaking power in this institutionalized
and socially accepted form of sexual abuse.
A survey in NWFP found that out of 1,710 adult male respondents in
communities throughout the province, about 83 percent said they knew about the
practice of bachabazi. Almost half of those who knew about it thought the practice
was either common or very common. Similarly, almost 81 percent of the
respondents said they knew that some boys in their own communities sell sex for
money. The places from which boys could be procured for sexual services included
hotels, schools, workplaces, markets, bus stations, and video shops. The study
concluded that there was a high prevalence of male sexual abuse and commercial
sexual exploitation of children in NWFP and that social norms such as bachabazi
helped to perpetuate the widely tolerated practice of adults keeping young boys for
sexual services. (NGO Coalition on Child Rights 1998)
Trafficking of Women and Girls
It is common knowledge that girls from Bangladesh, Burma, and other regions of
South Asia are trafficked into Pakistan for sale to pimps, but the issue is particularly
embarrassing for the Pakistan government because its solution would require
regional collaboration and acknowledgment of each country�s role in perpetrating the
problem. Since India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh do not enjoy relations of mutual
trust there has been no progress made on a problem that has been highlighted in
the press and by activists for years.
The trafficking issue has been most consistently addressed and publicized by
a legal aid service in Karachi that helps women and girls arrested for prostitution and
languishing in local jails without passports or the means to return home even if they
were freed. Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA) publishes updated
reports on the �flesh trade� which include comprehensive figures from its own
surveys. LHRLA (1996) estimates that up to 150 Bangladeshi women and children
are trafficked into Pakistan each day, coming through an elaborate network of pimps
and corrupt law-enforcement agents that covers the region. Women and young girls
are auctioned off at sales reminiscent of the slave trade during the nineteenth
century, and each �sale� brings the pimp over two hundred dollars. The buyer, to
whom the woman or girl is married off, may be a pimp himself or a man who uses
her as a laborer. The occasional runaway or victim of a rare police raid finds herself
in jail charged under the Hudood laws with illegal sex outside of marriage or else
with illegal entry into the country. Their only hope for release and rehabilitation, even
if only within Pakistan, is free legal aid offered by a limited number of
nongovernmental organizations in the country and refuge at one of the Edhi Welfare
Trust charitable homes for the destitute.
Girls from within Pakistan are also working in brothels around the country.
Pimps will pick up destitute or runaway girls and women from the streets and
persuade or force them into the profession. Other victims are sold into the business
by their own family members or even kidnapped from their own homes. Auctions of
girls have been reported in small towns, where they fetch Rs. 30-40,000 for their
�owners.� (HRCP 1996)
One early study identified four broad categories of prostitutes: dancing girls,
society (�call�) girls, students or nurses earning additional income through
prostitution, and full-time prostitutes in brothels. (Abbas et al. 1985) In a small survey
of 40 full-time prostitutes (ten from each province), it emerged that most of them
were between 20-35 years of age and had been sold and married off to their pimps
by their families. This was particularly common in northern parts of the country such
as Swat and Parachanar, from which girls would end up in brothels in other regions.
From within the category of dancing girls, or kanjars as the community in the redlight
district is known, further sub-categories have been identified within a hierarchy.
(Khilji n.d.) It is possible that adolescent girls predominantly occupy one of these
sub-categories, although age breakdowns are not always available. In another study
of 100 commercial sex workers in Lahore, 47 were ages 15-25. (SOCH n.d.)
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has documented numerous
reported incidents of the kidnapping and sale of women within Pakistan, as well as
the trafficking of Afghan women in Peshawar. (HRCP 1996) Accurate figures on the
proportion of trafficked women who are adolescents are impossible to obtain, but the
fact that young girls are sold into prostitution and that mothers and daughters are
sold separately demonstrates that the business values the young independently.
Further, those who find themselves bought and sold are invariably victims of poverty,
and lack the support and protection of their families.
Laws and Policies
Legal provisions do exist that partially protect children from sexual exploitation,
although no law exists which specifically prohibits child sexual abuse. For example,
the 1979 Hudood Ordinances prescribe severe punishments (imprisonment and
whipping) for unlawful sexual intercourse with a child. However, a girl child is defined
as someone under age 16 or pre-pubescent, a definition in violation of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and too vague to protect many
adolescents. Further, provisions in the Pakistan Penal Code 1860 make the act of
seduction of a girl under age 18 punishable by imprisonment or fine, and the Sind
Children Act 1955 prohibits a child over age 4 from living in or frequenting a brothel.
(Fayyazuddin et al. 1998) However, the Provincial Suppression of Prostitution
Ordinance 1961 comprehensively forbids the practice of prostitution, including
encouraging the seduction or prostitution of a girl less than 16 years of age. (Jillani
1989)
There is an interesting bias in the law stemming from cultural and religious
censure against homosexuality. Under the Pakistan Penal Code (Section 377),
sodomy (i.e. �carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or
animal�) is punishable by up to ten years, whereas vaginal or oral penetration, or any
other sexual violence to a child, is punishable up to two years only. As Sahil points
out, the legislation reflects a greater interest in differentiating between acceptable or
unacceptable sexual conduct rather than protecting children from sexual violence
per se. (Sahil n.d.)
These weaknesses in the law, which may not create the problem of child
prostitution but arguably facilitate its continuation, remain despite Pakistan�s
commitment to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Under Article 34 of the
CRC, state parties commit to taking all appropriate national, bilateral, and
multilateral measures to prevent the inducement or coercion of a child in unlawful
sexual activity, the exploitative use of children in prostitution or other unlawful sexual
practices and pornographic performances. (Jillani 1989) Particularly with regard to
the trafficking of women and children in the region, such bilateral and multilateral
measures are not being taken by Pakistan.
The National Commission for Child Welfare and Development has begun a
project with ILO/IPEC to conduct research and �establish administrative measures�
to combat child trafficking in the South Asian region. (Ministry of Women
Development 1997) The commission has prepared a report on combating the
trafficking of children which is still in draft form and was not available for this
literature review. Meanwhile, the recommendations made by the Working Group on
Youth Development in preparation for the Ninth Five Year Plan (1998-2003) do not
mention the need to combat child sexual abuse/exploitation or trafficking by
addressing the underlying causes of this social problem. In fact, the report lists
�problems in maintaining traditional moral values� as one of the major issues
�afflicting� Pakistani youth. It is unclear, therefore, whether sexual exploitation of
adolescents is being encouraged by default at the policy level.
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PAKISTAN INTERNATIONAL PEACE & HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION
P.O NINDO SHAHER DISTRICT BADIN SINDH PAKISTAN
POSTAL CODE NO:72250
PHONE NO:092-227-720227
Email: [email protected]
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