Kids smuggled to UAE as camel jockeys returned home

Twenty-two Pakistani boys aged between three and 12 who had been smuggled to the United Arab Emirates to work as camel race riders returned home today, and authorities were trying to trace their parents.

South Asian boys, mostly from Pakistan, are illegally trafficked to the Gulf to take part in the hazardous sport. They are favoured as riders as they are light, but risk serious injury if they fall during a race. Rights groups say the riders are often kept as virtual slaves.

Government official Faiza Asghar said the boys, who arrived on a flight from Dubai after embassy officials had tracked them down in the UAE, would be kept at Child Protection Centre in Lahore for the time being.

“Right now we don’t know anything about their families, but we will try our best to trace them,” she said.

Provincial chief Chaudhry Pervez Elahi promised to help the boys’ rehabilitation and give them free education. He said the government would try and repatriate other Pakistani children still working as camel riders in the Middle East.

“We know 2,500 such children are still living there, and out of them 70% are Pakistanis,” he said.

Other riders are believed to be smuggled from India and Bangladesh.

In 2002, Pakistan made smuggling children abroad for use as camel riders an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison, but the law is often flouted.