{"id":34582,"date":"2016-11-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-14T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ready-for-feedback3.com\/shape-history\/fmr\/yousaf\/"},"modified":"2024-08-27T14:38:36","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T19:38:36","slug":"yousaf","status":"publish","type":"fmr_content","link":"https:\/\/www.fmreview.org\/fr\/yousaf\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil society response to human trafficking in South Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trafficking in South Asia is complex and multifaceted, both a development and a criminal justice problem. The main destination of people from South Asia is the Middle East but many stay within India and Pakistan. There is extensive trafficking of women and girls from Bangladesh to India, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. UNICEF estimates that up to half a million Bangladeshis have been trafficked in recent years and that up to 200,000 Nepali women and girls are working in India’s sex industry.[1]<\/a> A small number of women and girls are trafficked through Bangladesh from Burma to India. Young boys from South Asia are trafficked to the UAE, Oman and Qatar and forced to work as camel jockeys.<\/p>\n

South Asian governments have been slow to acknowledge global concerns about human trafficking. The countries in the region have repeatedly been rebuked by the US State Department for failure to tackle human trafficking. Every major anti-trafficking initiative in the region has been civil society-led. NGOs have carried the main burden in reaching out to trafficked persons, providing health and legal assistance, raising public awareness, steering the national legislative initiatives and providing training and technical assistance to law enforcement and border control authorities. However, civil society involvement is quite recent and they can only provide limited services.<\/p>\n

Key challenges are:<\/p>\n