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NGO prepares draft bill to stop victimisation

PESHAWAR: A civil society organisation has prepared a bill to help save women from the trafficking and discussed the proposed document with the policy-makers, lawyers and members of the Non-Governmental Organisations to get their suggestions and recommendations to make it more viable.

The consultative working group meeting on woman trafficking bill was arranged by Noor Education Trust here on Friday to discuss the provisions of the bill with the participants who gave their suggestions for improvement.

After the introduction of the participants and the organisation, the participants were told that trafficking was recruitment, transfer, transport, harbouring or receipt, with or without, consent, fake marriages, false adoptions and kidnappings with a view to exploit women and children in bonded and illegal labour, domestic work, begging, sex-tourism, entertainment and prostitution for the benefit of traffickers and crime-syndicates.

The discussants were told that there were no accurate statistics available, but it was estimated that in the last 30 years, trafficking in women and children in Asia for sexual exploitation alone had touched the 30 million mark.

Both civil society members and the victims of trafficking have confirmed the increasing trend of marrying off girls from NWFP to men from other provinces, the participants were informed. They were told about the findings of the study conducted by the organisation in collaboration with the district partners.

Some of the main points of the study that were highlighted include district-based responses from the civil society members, awareness about bride price, kinds of people involved in the crime, ethnic origin of the clients, identification of traffickers and transaction modes.

Other information discussed was about the use of bride price money, written or verbal Nikah, parentÂ’s presence at Nikah, purpose of marriage, victims age at time of marriage, marriage with consent, ethnicity of trafficked girls, reasons for trafficking and current residence of the victims.

The participants suggested that the word woman should be changed or replaced with female because according to a study, mostly minor girls were trafficked, so it would not be applicable to them if the bill came into force. The discussants proposed that punishment for trafficking should be life imprisonment and the crime must be cognisable.
Source: The News
Date:11/22/2008