Breaking the Silence on Sex Trafficking

by SARAH KURESHI

Once victims are trapped n the complex trafficking network, there is practically no way out. It robs them of not only their families and friends, but also their social identities, any hope of realizing their potential, and – their desire to live.

Twelve-year-old Huma Kazmi escaped death in the initial destruction from the October 2005 earthquake that devastated northern Pakistan and India. She was pulled from the rubble of her school after three days without food or water. Her miraculous survival should have been a happy ending to a harrowing story. Instead, as she lay recovering in her hospital bed, Huma was subject to a threat equally capable of destroying her life.

“She said she was my aunt,” Huma recalled. “She said: ‘You are all alone here. Come to my house and I’ll take care of you. There’s another hospital nearby.’ ”

An unknown woman, posing as her aunt, sought to take Huma home from the hospital.[1] Thousands of orphaned earthquake survivors like Huma join millions of vulnerable women and children who are at risk of falling prey to human traffickers. Once they fall into the hands of the traffickers, they will be used as domestic servants, beggars, child soldiers, camel jockeys, or — as is most common — sex slaves.

The sale of women and children into the sex trade is a complex, international human rights issue that affects the Muslim world as much as any other global community. Although Islam is vehemently opposed to the exploitation of women and children, the sex trade flourishes in Muslim countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.[2] Muslim women and children are also trafficked in India and Pakistan, primarily through “sham” Islamic marriages. Islamic scholars, Muslim politicians and the global Muslim community are quick to condemn atrocities committed against Muslims when Western forces are responsible. However, many are largely silent when similar or worse atrocities are committed from within. Unfortunately, women and children sold into the sex trade are invisible to the Muslim leadership that should be at the forefront of their emancipation.

The Mechanics of Trafficking

"Someone abroad had a marriage proposal for me. The nikkah was done on the phone. I said kubool (accept) on the phone. The next day I was sent off to Mumbai. After three days, I was sent to wrong places … I told them I will not do what they say … they started beating and torturing me."

— An Indian girl, rescued by Rajwala, speaking of how she was sold into the sex-trafficking trade [3]

Human trafficking is the recruitment or transportation of persons for work by using threats of violence, deception or debt bondage. Human trafficking is one of the world’s fastest-growing criminal activities. There is much debate over the exact numbers of those trafficked, but the United Nations estimates that more than 4 million people disappear because of trafficking every year and roughly 70 percent are trafficked into the sex trade.[4]

The mechanisms by which children are trafficked are numerous. While many are abducted, others are sold to traffickers by close relatives or family friends, and still others are lured from their villages with false job offers or marriage proposals. Most trafficking victims are from slums and villages beset by poverty and illiteracy, where families are easy targets for the well-organized abduction schemes of traffickers. At the age of 13, Jothi, from Nepal, was sold by her aunt and uncle to traffickers for a couple thousand rupees.5 Shabana, a village girl rescued from trafficking, was 15 when she was promised a job in a beauty shop in New Delhi, but instead was taken to a brothel.

A web of local contacts, direct sales, deceit, debt bondage, falsification of documents and bribes are all involved in this process. While at a train station, Haseena, a young, divorced girl, was abducted along with her 1-year-old son, Ali. They were both sold—she to a brothel owner and Ali to a childless elderly couple. Although she was rescued several years after the abduction, the elderly couple refused to release Ali, and Haseena never contacted her family for fear that she may bring shame upon them.

A common scheme in many countries, particularly in the Muslim world, involves “sham” marriages. Many of these cases were documented by Prajwala, an anti-trafficking NGO in India. Destitute and easily enticed by the promise of a better future, Muslims from the lower socio-economic class in Mumbai marry their daughters to affluent middle-aged Arab men. An agent, or qazi, prepares a nikkahnama (marriage certificate) and talaqnama (divorce certificate) simultaneously, thus allowing the man to spend a few nights with the girl and then divorce her. The fee ranges from 10,000 rupees to 100,000 rupees, depending on the girl’s beauty. The girl’s parents receive half the amount while the other half is taken by the agent.