Pakistani Police Crack Down on Gang Kidnaping Children for Sale Abroad

On March 15, 2002, police in the port city of Karachi, Pakistan arrested eight persons, including three Maltese and five Pakistanis, on suspicion of trafficking in children after finding 11 children ranging in age from 2 weeks to 2 years, in a small room where they slept on a dirty mattress. According to a media report, the police reported that the suspects had 13 false passports and false birth certificates. They also had adoption papers with Maltese government stamps. The wife of the gang leader apparently supplied the false documents. Fayyaz Leghari, the chief police investigator in Karachi, said the racket apparently had been ongoing. The police believe the children may have been kidnaped, ten from hospitals where parents too poor to care for them had abandoned them or perhaps the suspects bought them parents. The Middle East is market for children, where their families sell young boys for use as jockeys in camel races. The case illustrates the rise in international trafficking of persons, especially children and women. As a result, the U.N. Convention on Transnational Organized Crime has protocols on trafficking in human beings and alien smuggling.