MAZAR-I-SHARIF (SW) – Many youngsters in Balkh province are lured every year to migrate to Pakistan or Iran in quest to realize the dreams of safer and happier life.
Hardly any of them know the traffickers are simply exploiting their innocence, and would only trade them with other traffickers in these countries. They are also unaware of the consequences they would face on the treacherous journey if the cash they are carrying got lost or finished. And, how the perceived jubilant and helpful traffickers can suddenly become cruel and evil masters of their fate.
Aziz (pseudonym) is one such young Balkhi man who sold his milk cow in autumn last year to pay for the journey to Iran in a bid to earn enough for his wedding. He was not able to study school, and used to spend his days selling milk and cream, or working at his patch of 400 meters of agriculture land. For much of his life, Aziz was happy to live the way he was living until the matter of his wedding emerged forcing him to seek new avenues for extra earning to meet the additional demands associated with it. On advice of his friends, Aziz sold his cow for AFN 60,000, and embarked on the treacherous journey.
After reaching Nimroz, Aziz and many more like him paid a trafficker AFN 18,000 per head to transport them to Isfahan in Iran. He said they were traded among a number traffickers within hours. “Instead of transporting me to my destination, the trafficker demanded me to pay additioanl AFN 100,000 for journey ahead otherwise I was directed to work at brick kilns and at dates farms”, he said.
Aziz said he agreed to perform the hard labor simply for the sake of his family and his marriage. He was made to tirelessly work by the traffickers for up to seven months without any pay, proper food or even cloths. “Believe me, they behaved very rudely, and I was made to work and work in the same cloths I was wearing when I left Afghanistan seven months ago”.
He said they also physically abused him, and left him hungry for many nights, or fed dried bread with water only.
Under such circumstances for seven months, Aziz got severely sick, and could not work anymore. When the traffickers saw him unable to work, he was set free. When he was deported back to Nimroz, his family was again asked for money. However, due to poverty, his family had already sold the patch of land they owned to make ends meet.
Dejected Aziz now waits on the roadside in his hometown every day to seek daily labor for meager payment.
The National Referral Mechasnim Mechanism (NRM) is a mechanism which is developed by the Afghan government’s High Commission to combat trafficking and smuggling. The purpose of this mechanism is to help government and NGOs to identify, refer, assist, and protect the VoTs and prosecute traffickers in a coordinated manner as outlined in the Afghanistan TiP Law 2017.
The Article 8, paragraph 3 of the NRM states:
• [The Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs is required to] hold programs through imams in mosques for the purpose of spreading awareness about human trafficking and trafficking in immigrants.
• [The Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs must] prepare and arrange views of the religious scholars and publish it, taking into account financial and technical aspects of the trafficking of human beings and the trafficking of immigrants.
According to local officials in Balkh, Aziz is the victim of crimes in connection with the trafficking of human beings and the trafficking of immigrants.
Aminullah Amin, head of the directorate of justice and secretary for the commission against trafficking, said all sorts of exploitation of minors and grown-ups such as forcing them to dance, bounded labor etc. inside the country are considered as trafficking of human beings while similar sorts of exploitations and persecutions outside the borders are known as trafficking of immigrants.
Syed Mohammad Samey, chairman for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in Balkh, said in this regard that perpetrators of such crimes should be held accountable.
The directorate of refugees and repatriation in Balkh said it does not have exact figures about the youth migrating in this way. Masoud Qadri, head of the directorate of refuges and repatriation, said in most cases the youth embark on the thorny journey without informing their families.
ENDS
