• 40,000 children on slave labour as ‘child camel jockeys’ in Middle East and Arab countries
• Dead body of 'child camel jockey' to arrive
• Rescued child jockeys find a new home
• Tied to camels: Kids in UAE continue to suffer
• Islam - Child Slavery - 'Camel Races'
• Latvian govt releases 10 Pakistanis
• Pak in bid to free nationals in Muscat
• Five more Camel Jockeys back from UAE
• Two more Camel kids returned to Pakistan
• Sale of boys as camel racing jockeys in UAE

Child Jockeys: 40,000 children on slave labour as ‘child camel jockeys’
in Middle East and Arab countries

The Pakistan’s renowned human rights activist Ansar Burney has said that some fourty thousand innocent children mostly from Asian countries including Pakistan, India and Bangladesh are working on slave labour as ‘child camel jockeys’ in miserable circumstances in UAE and Middle East and Arab countries.

Chairman of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International, Prisoners Aid Society and Bureau of Missing and Kidnapped Children, Ansar Burney by profession a senior lawyer, who practically rescued hundreds of such children, whose ages are from one and a half year to three from the most miserable circumstances said on Friday that further 40,000 innocent children are waiting for Ansar Burney Welfare Trust Int’l to rescue to save their precious lives.

Ansar Burney said that last month a four-year boy from Pakistan felt down from camel and died when camels ran away on his body, in another incidence last week another Pakistani one and a half year old boy fell off from camel and lost his legs in UAE. Ansar Burney, known as ‘human rights Angel’ said that more than fourty thousand (40,000) innocent children are living in most miserable circumstances and also dieing in a very miserable conditions for which one cannot even imagine.

“These innocent children of humanity are living in iron tents, without electricity in the temperature of above 50 degree centigrade (above 100 degree Fahrenheit), where the sexual abuse is common”. Ansar Burney said. Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International has rescued hundreds of such children from the slave labour and rehabilitated them in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Sudan, Ethiopia and other parts of the world. Years of abuse has led these children to have their upper legs flesh rubbed away, their bones being damaged as well as their body structures.

The gruesome idea of making these innocent children disabled at such a young age is an enjoyable sport! Injuries are a common factor; over the years the injury deteriorates and causes long term defects in the lower part of the body. They even lost their sexual ability because of use them as child camel jockeys from the age of one and a half year or start from two years of age and used them till the age of seven. “These children will face problems once and if they start a family. The riding and rubbing on the camels continuously will be damaging on their sexuality. The ill treatment of these employers and traffickers is very upsetting but very true. Some children are also abused and taken advantage of by traffickers and their employers”. Ansar Burney added.

Ansar Burney, of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International, only charity working practically to free the child jockeys, said: "These children are
purposely underfed so that their weights are kept down. "The food they’re given in the camps is very dirty and unhygienic. They have to feed the camels, but are beaten if they try to eat the animals’ good food. They are allowed to eat only half bread in 24 hours. They get up early 3 O’clock in the morning and go to sleep at 9 at night; they work for 18 hours a day, while the ages of these children are one and a half year old to six years. They are continuously on slave labourwithout any rest, 7 days a week and 375 days a year and work for 18 hours per day.

"They sleep in hot, crowded huts made from corrugated irons sheets. It’s boiling hot out in the desert yet they have to train twice or three times a day. It’s hard and painful work and, after a while, the boys have permanent damage to their sexual organs from bouncing up and down on the camels. "During training and in races, they often fall down and are badly injured or crushed to death. Because it’s illegal to keep underage jockeys, they never receive medical treatment and some of them die very painful deaths. Their bodies are just buried out in the desert in unmarked graves”.He said, the uses of children as jockeys in camel racing are extremely dangerous and mostly result in serious injury and even death. Children are as young as ‘one and a half’ year that are used and abused by these very people who have no heart and no fear.

Ansar Burney said with sorrow and grief that after giving them training in UAE, now the users of these innocents are using another tactics and selling them or giving them on rent to other Middle East and Arab countries to use these children as ‘Child Camel Jockeys’. Ansar Burney said the rulers and other Sheikhs of the ruling families own most of the camel camps. He said in some cases the parents are selling their milk-sucking babies or the human smuggler agents kidnapping them or using tactics to take out children from the laps of parents and selling them in Middle East and Arab countries to use them on slave labour as ‘Child Camel Jockeys’. The trafficking of young children for forced labour is one of the fastest growing areas of international crimes.

The study of Ansar Burney Welfare rust International, pointed out that child trafficking is not new, but it is a current practice in most of the Middle East and Arab region. However, it has considerably gathered momentum over the past years. The use of children as jockeys in UAE from Pakistan, however, dates back to early 70’s. “There are estimated 30,000 active racing camels and about 17 racetracks throughout the UAE. Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah, which are centres of this activity, have five of the main stadiums near the Rulers Palaces”. Ansar Burney said.

The high-risk areas for child trafficking, it says that for child traffickers Rahim Yar Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan and Southern Punjab, as well as some parts of Sindh and Baluchistan are the centres for trafficking in children, and are major sources of children trafficked as camel jockeys. He said, it is mainly the work of international networks that have made it a sophisticated and well-organised human trafficking industry in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Ethiopia, Sudan and other poor countries. It has become an earning for those criminals who torture the lives of these innocent children and enjoy the pleasures of life from the tears and cursing of these children.

He said according to the history and trend of this sport, it says that camel racing in UAE is an old sport, but they are not using there on children as ‘jockeys’. The Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International during his work and research of several years on this particular issue never find any Arab child on camel from UAE.

Why is trafficking of children are so popular?

Highlighting the root causes of trafficking in children, it says that they are multiple and complex. Some more apparent, which especially persuade parents to part their children at such a young age are poverty they have so many children and no money to feed them all. If they don’t sell one or two of their children they will all die of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, unawareness. And inadequate legislation and weak enforcement of related laws and may be greed in some cases.

Poverty has forced many families to sell their children, some as young as one year, to find whatever work they can.Even Pakistani children are smuggled as camel jockeys to the Gulf States; some are sold by their parents and others are kidnapped by organised groups. Organised groups have made this a business on the expense of the lives of these children. He said the trafficking of children for use as camel jockeys is strictly prohibited by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and by ILO Conventions 29, 138 and 182 - all of which have been ratified by the UAE but its still grooming alarmingly.

Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister for Foreign Affairs and also the Chairman of the Emirates Camel Racing Federation promulgated Order No.1/6/266 on 22 July 2002, which prohibits children under 15 or weighing less than 45kg from being employed in camel racing.

It also specifies that all camel jockeys must have proof of their age through their passports and be issued with a medical certificate by the Camel Racing Federation. But the age is still a very important factor, children as young as one and half year are being used as camel jockeys. The minister announced that the ban would come into effect on 1 September 2002.

A fine of 20,000 Durham’s ($ 5,500) will be imposed for a first offence and a second offence will lead to a ban from camel racing for one year. A prison sentence of three months along with a fine of 20,000 Durham’s will be imposed for subsequent offences.

Ansar Burney said that violation of the law enforced in 2002 is still being continued, as evidences (cases of more than 42 children deported and repatriation in April and May 2003 and hundreds till October 2004),indicates that rules are still being violated and ignored.

The Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International has rescued hundreds of innocent children.As during the last 9 months, hundreds of children were deported and repatriated from UAE, Muscat, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab and Middle East countries, after working for more than two and three years as camel jockeys. Even the large numbers of such children are not traceable or deducted by government officials in UAE and Pakistan and remain ignored and invisible from the scene.

“These kids have a right to live. They should not be tortured, degraded in any way despite their parents need for money.” Burney added.

Seven-year old Mustafa is one of the children rescued by Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International from a camel jockey camp in UAE. After searching for his parents for more than six months, he was finally handed back to his family in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

"I was playing outside my friend’s house when I was taken away," said Mustafa. "I was sleeping with other children in a very hot shed made of iron. We were only given food as half dirty bread once a day. A lot of the children had blood coming out of their noses."

Recently Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International has made a video documentary film of more than 30 hours with a hidden video camera, on the plight of these unfortunate children.

"The children are made to train on the camels for periods lasting up to 18 long hours twice a day," he said. "Even when the temperatures reach 50°C or above (above 100 degree Fahrenheit), they have to wear heavy, metal helmets. It’s clear that many of them, boys, are sexually abused by the men running the camps."

The children are attached to the camels’ back with Velcro fastenings but so rough is the ride that many of them fall off. One of the ‘advantages’ of using children as jockeys is that their terrified cries make the camels run even faster. Like Mustafa, many of the child jockeys have been kidnapped from their villages in countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Sudan. Some have been bought from impoverished families by agents.

Others are lured from home with promises to their families that they will be employed as domestic servants in cities in their own countries. In one recent case, a woman posing as the mother of three boys and two girls aged between two and seven was arrested at Islamabad airport in Pakistan. The children were allegedly being taken to Dubai to serve as camel jockeys.

Ansar Burney said that in Bangladesh, reuniting the children with their families is a difficult task. "Many of these children were trafficked at a very early age - perhaps between one and a half and five - and often cannot recognise their parents. Some can no longer even speak their mother tongue," he said.

Dead body of 'child camel jockey' to arrive

DUBAI, Oct 08 (Online): The dead body of a five year old Pakistani boy working on slave labor as 'Child Camel Jockey' will arrive in Pakistan on Friday night.

The boy fell off a camel during a camel race on 15th of September and died later in Al-Ain hospital UAE.
This was announced by the human rights organization Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International.

Chairman of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International, Prisoners Aid Society and Bureau of Missing and Kidnapped Children/Persons, Ansar Burney, Advocate said that Mohammad Kaleem (5) son of Mohammad Hussain, fell off the camel during camel race training in Al Ain, UAE on Wednesday morning (15th September 2004), and camel ran him over leaving serious head injuries

He later he died in Al-Ain hospital on 28th September.

Kaleem suffered serious head and body injuries, when he fell off the camel during the race.

Renowned human and civil rights activist Ansar Burney, Advocate said on Thursday that all arrangements have been finalized to send the body of the innocent boy back to Multan, on Friday night for burial.

Rescued child jockeys find a new home
By Ashfaq Ahmed

Three-year-old Shahi broke both his arms while picking up dung in a camel camp. Today, he is at the UAE’s first rehabilitation centre for under-age camel jockeys.

Shahi, who still remembers the horror of working in the camp, told the Gulf News team visiting the centre that he wanted to go to school and eat ice-cream.

“I am very happy here. I get a bath every day. I get food, milk and medicine - I also get chocolates, which I love,” he says.

Shahi cannot remember his parents, but his 5-year-old brother, Alam, who was also rescued from a camel camp, is with him at the centre.

The centre - the first of its kind dedicated to rehabilitating under-age camel jockeys rescued by UAE authorities, has been set up at the Zayed Military City in Abu Dhabi. In addition to Shahi, 30 other children, aged 3 to 11, are being cared for there.

The Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International in Pakistan (ABWTI) is running the centre in cooperation with UAE authorities.

Ansar Burney, human rights activist and chairman of ABWTI, together with his wife, Shaheen, are helping the authorities set up various facilities for children being brought to the centre.

“The centre has been established under the orders of Lieutenant General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, to eliminate the use of under-age camel jockeys in races,” Burney tells Gulf News.

Shaheen, who visits the children every day, says: “They need love. When they first arrived they were very stubborn and had no manners. They did not know anything about hygiene. They did not even know how to use a toilet and eat properly.

“They used to fight with each other and use filthy language. But since the day they were brought here - about 25 days ago, they have learnt a lot.

"Now they not only behave well but have also started taking an interest in studying. They used to tear books when they were first asked to attend classes.”

Zulfiqar, an 11-year-old boy from Pakistan, says he came to the UAE with a couple who pretended to be his parents.

“They left me at a camp and then vanished. I came with the consent of my parents because they are very poor and wanted me to go abroad and work,” he says.

He was desperately waiting to go home, he did not want to stay in the UAE because he was afraid of being made to work as a camel jockey.

Daily routine
Nine-year-old Akbar says he used to get up at 4am to feed the camels and clean up their dung.

“I had to ride everyday from 8am to 1pm. Then I had to feed the camels and clean up the place before going for forced training at 3pm.

"I went to sleep at 10pm after a final round of feeding the animals and cleaning. I am very happy at this centre and want to go back to my home,” he says.

As Gulf News was touring the centre, Abdul Sattar Pardesi, a philanthropist from Dubai, brought sweets for the children and they rushed to get their share.

Later, they gathered in the compound for a game of football.

“There are more than 5,000 boys who are used as camel jockeys in violation of the UAE law. They will be rescued from the camps with the help of the authorities.

"The UAE is the first government to ban the use of under-age, underweight jockeys in the camel-racing industry,” Burney says.

He says the real culprits responsible for this crime were agents who smuggled children in from developing countries.

“They are well-connected and even have the backing of politicians in their respective countries.”

There is a need to establish similar centres in other Gulf countries where more than 40,000 children, mostly from Asian countries, including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Ethiopia, are being used as camel jockeys.

“International networks have made it a sophisticated and well-organised human trafficking industry in these countries.

“During training and in races, children often fall off the camels and are badly injured or crushed to death.

"Because it’s illegal to use under-age jockeys, they never receive medical treatment and some of them die after prolonged suffering,” Burney says.

Social factors
One such child, 9-year-old Shakeel from Pakistan, who fell from a camel and had his stomach ripped open, is now being treated at the centre.

“The root causes of under-age child trafficking for camel jockeying are multiple and complex. Some are obvious - such as extreme levels of poverty.

"It is far easier to persuade parents to part with their children when, if they don’t sell one or two of their children, they will all die because of poverty. Inadequate legislation and weak enforcement of related laws also contribute heavily to the problem,” Burney says.

Mercenary groups have made it into a business at the expense of children’s lives, he says.

“Many child jockeys have been kidnapped from their home villages in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Sudan. Some have been bought from impoverished families by agents.

"Others are lured from home with promises to their families they will be employed as domestic servants in cities in their own countries.”

Burney, who has already repatriated hundreds of camel jockeys this year, has also established similar rehabilitation centres in Pakistan and Bangladesh to help the children.

“We will visit other countries, such as Sudan and Sri Lanka, to establish similar centres. We will provide education and vocational training to help them grow up to be good citizens,” he says.

Tied to camels: Kids in UAE continue to suffer
Author: dpa
Date: November 17, 2000

Shortly after sunrise and again before sunset every day Sheizad and the other little riders are strapped to the backs of camels for endless hours of training at the racetracks amid the sand dunes and glittering skyscrapers of this rich Arab emirate.

Behind a camel's hump, the frail figures of some of the children - most of them only five or six years old - are virtually invisible. Despite a government ban seven years ago against the use of young children as camel jockeys, the practice is still widespread in Dubai and the rest of the United Arab Emirates.

Hundreds of children are forced or lured into a life of virtual slavery as jockeys in several Gulf countries, where camel racing has been a traditional sport. Most of the children come from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Sudan - countries bound together by poverty.

Sheizad, from Bangladesh, is too young even to know his age, which cannot be more than five.

On a warm afternoon, he arrived at the Camel Race Track in Dubai, together with other young waifs in the back of a van. Nearly all of them are dirty, barefoot and looking like orphans robbed of their childhoods.

By contrast, at the nearby Nad Al-Sheba track which hosts the six million-dollar Dubai World Cup every year, horses usually arrive in clean, air-conditioned comfort.

Most of these children have either been abducted by unscrupulous traffickers who sell them to agents in the United Arab Emirates for 20,000 dirhams (approx Rs0.3 million), or have been sold by poor parents or relatives, or lured here under false pretences.

These include promises to their parents that the children will get good work and education, said Ansar Burney, a human rights activist from Pakistan who has helped return some of the children to their families.

The agents, most of them from the Indian subcontinent, are the middlemen between the kidnappers and local sheikhs or powerful families who keep the children and train them between eight or nine hours a day.

The people in charge of the children mistreat them, and they beat them. While they give very good food to the camels, the children are not even allowed a proper meal for fear that they will gain too much weight and be heavy for the camels.

Often, the children are forced onto crash diets in order to lose weight before an important race.

The small jockeys are bound to a camel's back, often using adhesive straps. But sometimes the kids slip off and either get trapped underneath the camel or are trampled. It is not uncommon for children to fall off or get dragged along, sometimes to their deaths, according to a 1999 report from the London-based human rights group Antislavery International.

The children work hard and long hours. They usually go to sleep between 10pm and 11pm, and get up at 4am for the start of their daily training an hour later.

The children's training extents until 11am or 12am and then in the afternoon between 3pm and 6pm.

The use of children in the camel races has been illegal in the UAE since 1993. The regulations prohibit children from racing camels, and call for jockeys to weigh at least 45 kilograms in keeping with international standards for horse jockeys.

Once Sheizan is atop a camel, his tactic is to utter a series of bloodcurdling screams from the outset, whipping the animal as much as he can in order to make it run faster.

But if Sheizan's camel comes first in the race, no wealth or fame awaits the child. All the honours will go to the camel's owner.

Islam - Child Slavery - 'Camel Races'
By DAVID ORR IN DELHI

THE louder the child jockeys scream in pain the faster the camels to which they are strapped run. Many of the tiny riders have been left to die from the appalling injuries suffered on the desert race courses; their bodies dumped in unmarked graves.

Kidnapped or bought from their poverty-stricken parents in Pakistan or Bangladesh, children as young as three are being smuggled into the Gulf states to take part in the lucrative sport of camel racing.

While the youngsters are bought for as little as £50, their valuable steeds can cost up to £300,000. The animals are pampered while the child jockeys, who can earn their owners thousand of pounds in a single race, are starved to keep their weight down, beaten and often sexually abused.

The full picture of cruelty to children in the oil-rich Gulf region is only now emerging in the wake of the decision by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to implement a law it has long ignored.

From the beginning of last month the Emirates Camel Racing Federation has agreed to respect legislation, first introduced in 1993, banning the use of jockeys aged under 15 or weighing less than 45 kg. Offenders face huge fines or imprisonment.

But camel racing is big business in the region and charities working to rescue the children and reunite them with their parents claim thousands of underage jockeys are still being held in racing camps.

Charity workers, who have been given unprecedented access to the camps, fear the illegal trade will not be eradicated because of the promise of rich pickings for the criminal gangs who buy or kidnap the children and sell them on to the camel owners for up to £16,000.

Although the owners of camel stables have been told to repatriate the children, it is estimated that as many as 2,000 are still being kept in the racing camps.

Ansar Burney, of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, a charity working to free the child jockeys, said: "These children are purposely underfed so that their weights are kept down.

"The food they are given in the camps is dirty and unhygienic, worse than the food given to the racing camels. They have to feed the camels, but are beaten if they try to eat the animals food.

"They sleep in hot, crowded huts made from corrugated irons sheets. Its boiling hot out in the desert yet they have to train twice or three times a day. Its hard and painful work and, after a while, the boys have permanent damage to their sexual organs from bouncing up and down on the camels.

"During training and in races, they often fall down and are badly injured or crushed to death. Because its illegal to keep underage jockeys, they never receive medical treatment and some of them die very painful deaths. Their bodies are just buried out in the desert in unmarked graves."

Seven-year old Mustafa is one of the children rescued by Burney from a camel jockey camp. After searching for his parents for more than six months, he was finally handed back to his family in Pakistans Punjab province last week.

"I was playing outside my friends house when I was taken away," said Mustafa. "I was sleeping with other children in a very hot shed made of iron. We were only given food once a day. A lot of the children had blood coming out of their noses."

From his personal visits and from the testimonies of children like Mustafa, Burney has been able to build up a disturbing picture of life in the camps.

"The children are made to train on the camels for periods lasting up to three or four hours," he said. "Even when the temperatures reach 50°C or above, they have to wear heavy, metal helmets. Most of them are boys but there are also some girls. Its clear that many of them, boys and girls, are sexually abused by the men running the camps."

The children are attached to the camels back with Velcro fastenings but so rough is the ride that many of them fall off. One of the advantages of using children as jockeys is that their terrified cries make the camels run even faster.

Like Mustafa, many of the child jockeys have been kidnapped from their villages in countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Sudan. Some have been bought from impoverished families by agents.
Others are lured from home with promises to their families that they will be employed as domestic servants in cities in their own countries.

In one recent case, a woman posing as the mother of three boys and two girls aged between three and seven, was arrested at Islamabad airport in Pakistan. The children were allegedly being taken to Dubai to serve as camel jockeys.

The International Organisation of Migration (IoM), a United Nations body that has been asked to take up the issue following the UAEs decision to implement the law, has greeted the move as "an important step".

However, Shahidul Haque, the IoMs chief of mission in Bangladesh, admits that reuniting the children with their families is a difficult task.

"Many of these children were trafficked at a very early age - perhaps between two and five - and often cannot recognise their parents. Some can no longer even speak their mother tongue," he said.

Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed al Nahyan, the UAEs minister of state for foreign affairs and chairman of the Emirates Camel Racing Federation, has requested the owners of camel racing stables to repatriate child
jockeys. He said those who failed to do so would be fined or imprisoned.

The Geneva-based IOM has said the UAE authorities appear to be "serious" in implementing the ban on child jockeys but has added that the "demand and supply" aspects of the business also need to be addressed.

Latvian govt releases 10 Pakistanis
Sunday December 21, 2003

RIGA, December 22 (Online): Latvian Government has withdrawn its charges of terrorism against 10 Pakistani 'Taekwando players', thanks to the persistent efforts of human rights activist Ansar Burney.

The ten Pakistani citizens, Mohammad Shafique Marllowe, Chaudhry Muhammad Mansha, Rasheed Ahmad Siddiqi, Mohammad Akmal Siddiqi, Muzaffar Hayyat Khan, Ateeq-ur-Rehman, Mohammad Zahid, Imran Malick, Ejaz Ahmed and Muhammad Akmal, who entered Latvia on 15th Nov, via Riga Airport, were arrested on 21st Nov on suspicion of terrorism.

The Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International is now arranging their return seat confirmation for Lahore. All the players who belong from the Province of Punjab will arrive at Allama Iqbal International Airport, Lahore, hopefully within a day or two.

The release orders were issued by the Secretary of the Ministry of Interior of the State of Latvia, J. Reksna, on an application moved by the Pakistan's world-renowned 'human rights Angel' Ansar Burney, Advocate in which he challenged the arrest and charges of terrorism against 10 innocent Pakistani 'Taekwando players'.

According to Latvian Police they had detained 10 Pakistani citizens, on November 21, fearing Pakistanis might have been preparing a terrorist attack targeting the visiting Israeli basketball team.

The 'human rights Angel' Ansar Burney, Advocate had strongly condemned the arrest of 10 Pakistani players on Terrorism charges and immediately challenged the arrest in the District Court of Riga and Latvian Ministry of Interior.

In his application in the Interior Ministry, Ansar Burney, Advocate had declared the arrest of 10 Pakistanis as illegal and said; this arrest has gave a bad name to Pakistan and its nationals and mount to be a discrimination between the human beings on country and religion basis, so 'Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International' reserves the rights to challenge the same in the United Nations and other International levels on defamation charges against Latvian Government.

He, in his application also warned Latvian government, if it failed to release 10 innocent Pakistanis soon he would have no other option except to challenge this illegal arrest and detention in the International Court of Justice, United Nations Human Rights Commission and other International platforms.

These Pakistanis were innocent 'Taekwando players' who went to Riga to participate in international games on an invitation from Latvia, with legal visas and completing all other legal formalities, but were arrested from their hotel on terrorism charges on a crime they had never committed.

The crime as far as Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International had come to know, on which these 10 Pakistani players were arrested in Latvia is; they had return flight to Pakistan via Russia in a plane in which Israeli team was suppose to travel.

The 10 Pakistani players who went to Latvia, on 15th November stayed in a local hotel and took part in games. They got valid visas at the Riga Air port till 23rd November. When they made reservation for their return to Pakistan for 22nd by Aeroflot via Russia, they were arrested a day before their return on the fake terrorism charges.

It may be recall here that in the last two months alone the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International succeeded in getting the release of more than Five thousand Pakistanis from Middle East Jails and brought them backs to Pakistan, which is become a historical record.

Meanwhile Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International is also working to collect dead bodies for burial as recently released Pakistanis who already arrives Pakistan, revealed that several 'Dead Bodies' of Innocent Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankan and other nationals are decaying on the mountains of Oman and some of them were even eaten by the Cannibals.

Thousands of poor and distressed Pakistanis are still detained in foreign jails, waiting for their release.

The innocent prisoners of circumstances in thousands were also released from Yemen, Syria, Tanzania, Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey and Countries of Middle East and Arab region, only due to the hectic efforts of Ansar Burney.

The groups of fake agents took innocent Pakistanis to foreign countries on dreams of better future, after taking huge amounts of money and leave them there helpless and sometimes took them to dessert and shoot them.

Pak in bid to free nationals in Muscat
IMTIAZ GUL

Islamabad, Nov. 18: As human trafficking reaches serious proportions in Pakistan, efforts are underway to repatriate over 1500 nationals incarcerated in Muscat jails.

“These 1500 Pakistanis were smuggled to Muscat by human traffickers last year and we are now trying to secure their release so that they can celebrate Id with their families,” chairman of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International (ABWTI), Ansar Burney, said.

He added that the trust is in touch with authorities in Muscat through Pakistan’s mission in Oman and the foreign office in order to secure the release of the jailed Pakistanis before Id.

“We achieved a big success when authorities in Muscat recently released 1334 Pakistani prisoners in two separate groups,” Burney said.

He maintained that these Pakistanis had been smuggled to Muscat by fake travel agents, adding that there are hundreds of Pakistanis still working as slave labourers in Syria and other West Asian countries.

He said according to available estimates, over 10,000 people, including children, were smuggled out to different countries this year.

In 2002, the trust was involved in returning to their parents at least 15 children between the ages of three and six recovered from the Gulf or while bring smuggled abroad for use as camel jockeys.

At least 40 arrests were made in connection with the smuggling of the children.

“We still have five such children in our centre whose parents have not been traced yet,” Burney added.

Five more Camel Jockeys back from UAE

Five more innocent children, three of them real brothers who were returned Pakistan a few days back from United Arab Emirates, where they were being used as camel jockeys, were handed over to their parents by Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International. The five children Usman 4, Ghulam 6, Murtaza 5, Shabbir 7 and Kamil 8 stayed in UAE for more than two years where they were made to work as ‘Camel Jockeys’.

Ghulam said, “Our employer used me and other children for sex as well”. “We were supposed to made a very good food for camels but we were not allowed to even taste that food”. We were living in iron tents even in hot temperatures of above 50 degree, some times blood comes out from our mouth and nose and some times from stomach but no one to hear our hue and cry”, Shabbir said with tears eyes. “Kamil said, “We had spent two years like hell as camel jockeys in a worst kind of circumstances we are unable to tell any one”.

Two more Camel kids returned to Pakistan

Two more camel jockey children namely Arbab, 6, and Maher, 8, returned to Pakistan from the Middle East and were handed over to their parents by the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International.

The two boys--Shajar (six) and Shajawar (four)-- were brought illegally to the UAE via Iran by two unscrupulous agents named Gul Ahmed and Sharo Mai on forged passports and with false birth certificates. In the UAE, the two boys were sold to a Pakistani agent for 20,000 dirhams (about Rs 2,40,000) each.

Local newspapers here said the kidnapping of the two boys, who are brothers, came to light when their relatives lodged a complaint with a welfare trust in Karachi.

Following this, Ansar Burney, a Pakistani lawyer and human rights activist, who runs the trust, came to the UAE in search of the two boys.

The boys' father, who works as a gardener in Dubai, had no idea that his children had been kidnapped and were living a pathetic life in a camp.

Burney was quoted as saying in the media that the two boys were spotted at Al-Ain, a township near Abu Dhabi. ''When we visited the camp where the two boys were staying, we were not allowed to go anywhere near the boys by the camp supervisors, who were mostly Asians. To overcome this problem, we got in touch with the Pakistani Embassy, which was quick to enlist the support of the UAE interior ministry.''

Burney said ''The Abu Dhabi police responded positively by sending two CID Officers along with us to the camp. The boys were handed over to us without further hassle by the camp authorities.''

He said Shajawar, the younger boy, was now bed-ridden as he had suffered serious injuries in both his legs after a fall from a camel's back.

Police have reportedly taken into custody a Pakistani expatriate for questioning but the couple, who brought the two boys into UAE posing as their parents, are absconding.

A Pakistan Embassy spokesman was quoted as saying that the two boys would be repatriated to Pakistan once legal formalities were completed.

A few months back, a nine-year-old Pakistani boy was rescued from the clutches of his kidnappers when he gave them a slip and reached a police station in Abu Dhabi with the assistance of some people.

UNI