Pakistan To Open Special Schools For Child Ex-Camel Jockeys

by Zofeen T Ebrahim

(IPS) KARACHI -- Pakistan will begin rehabilitating a unique group of children -- boys as young as four or five who were used as jockeys in the age-old Bedouin sport of camel racing.

The latest ban of the practice of putting children atop the animals came into effect on May 31, when all camel farm owners in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were asked to provide a list of their camel jockeys. Now only those over 16 years of age and weighing 45 kgs can ride.

While previous attempts to stop the trafficking of boys -- mostly from South Asia -- to become jockeys have failed, their advocates are hopeful that this one will take root because the UAE government has involved "sending" countries in the move.

Among the jockey "exporting" nations, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sudan, Mauritania, Eritrea, Somalia and India regularly provide child camel jockeys, with Pakistan topping the list.

Many boys -- the smaller the better because the camels can run faster -- are delivered by their relatives, while others are smuggled and sold into the trade. According to the UAE's Ministry of Interior, and as reported in the Persian Gulf media, 45 percent of child camel jockeys arrived with their uncles, 30 percent with cousins from their mother's side and nine percent with their parents' friends.

Human rights activist Ansar Burney, who has been working for a ban for over 16 years, claims credit for the recent developments, which he says came about after a program depicting the child jockeys, 'Real Sports,' was shown on the HBO cable channel in October 2004.

"The movie was brought to the notice of the prince of Abu Dhabi as it portrayed a very negative image of the UAE in the West. I was invited by the UAE government to help them resolve the issue in a humanitarian manner. True to his words, the prince helped establish a center for the rehabilitation of the rescued kids in Abu Dhabi, which is run under my supervision," Burney told IPS.

Today about 170 child jockeys stay at the center.

Burney estimates there are 5,000 to 6,000 child jockeys under 16, about 2,000 among them Pakistanis. However, according to a preliminary survey by the UAE interior ministry, the number is 3,000 total kids, of which 2,000 are Pakistanis, says Faiza Asghar, chairperson of the government's newly established Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) in Punjab province.

Burney is skeptical of the official figures. "We only have 170 kids in the center. Where are the missing kids? Even if our figures are exaggerated -- which they are not -- even going by the figures given by the UAE, where are the rest of the kids?"

The activist fears the children may have been taken far into the desert until the issue dies down, or smuggled and transported to neighboring countries where the ban has so far not been imposed.

Pakistan is set to welcome the first batch of 48 children, who were among the 170 handed over by camel owners to the UAE government, who in turn will hand them over to the government's CPWB.

A special committee of officials from the ministries of interior, labor and manpower along with overseas Pakistanis, social welfare and child protection agencies and the United Nations Children's Fund will work with the CPWB to help repatriate the kids.

The bureau has the capacity of accommodating 250 children. "The kids will not come at one time so we hope to be able to clear the paperwork, identify the parents and send the children home before the next batch of kids arrive," explains Silvia Pasti, a child protection officer at UNICEF.

But this may not be as simple as it sounds. Burney, who will accompany the kids from Abu Dhabi, says a big majority of them will need long-term medical attention since they "suffer from broken or damaged bones, kidney problems -- having been made to drink sea water and having been under fed so as not to gain weight. Many were sodomized."

Another problem foreseen is that of identification. Many children -- who have been gone for years -- might not be able to recognize their parents, and vice versa, and families might lack birth certificates to prove their identity. A recent report in 'Dawn,' an English newspaper, told of a child jockey who returned after the death of his brother during a camel race, but is still in government custody after six months because authorities say his identity cannot be proven.

Burney plans to set up a rehabilitation center to monitor the former jockeys in Dera Ghazi Khan, in Southern Punjab, from where a majority of the former jockeys hail. "The idea is to facilitate the CPWB in enrolling the kids in schools, provide them with skills, look after their health and make sure they are not led back to the hell they've been rescued from," he said.

"The CPWB is doing excellent work, and they will need all the support, everyone can muster," Burney added.

Pasti says authorities are "thinking of involving some community members to act as a watchdog body -- train them as an early warning system, to identify the vulnerable kids so that we are ready to provide them with an alternative. It also means raising awareness among parents of sending their kids off for such hazardous work."

Added Mushtaq Ahmed of the Overseas Pakistanis Foundation in an interview: "Most of the time the parents are involved in this trade. These people are so poor that they are willing to sacrifice one child so that the rest can live off him. Their economic conditions are really terrible."