Angels Camel Jockeys
By the Editor

CREDIT for unfolding a horrid act, by all parameters of justice, goes to Minister of State for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis Tariq Azeem, for recovery of a seven-year-old boy from Abu Dhabi who was sent there by unscrupulous elements to serve as a jockey in camel race.

Addressing a news conference, he also regretted that some parents send their innocent children as camel jockeys, just for Rs 150 [bit over US $-2]. Mitigation of the sufferings of even a single child is important and, therefore, the achievement is appreciable.

However, it is well-known that the unholy practice of sending small children for the joy game is going on since long but the Government has, paradoxically, failed to take any tangible measure to curb it.

It is regrettable that whenever, such stories come into sight, some elements try to malign our brotherly country UAE and conveniently overlook the fact that it is network or, if otherwise phrased, a cluster, of nasty folks here in Pakistan, which lures innocent and deprived sections of the society and sends their kids abroad for such a risky and hazardous game.

There is a net of persons that is engaged in this activity in diverse vicinities of the country. Some of them take advantage, of the abysmal poverty prevailing in some regions while others simply kidnap adolescents and smuggle them, beyond oceanic.

Such hideous elements are, operating at will, despite existence of hefty multi-tier surveillance and checks by the security agencies.

UAE is time-tested friend of Pakistan, which has always helped Pakistan in times of need. It would, thus, be superfluous and unfair to blame the brotherly country which has, by all perceptions, shown consistent respect to Pakistani laws, traditions and interests.

It is, virtually, a set of our own people who trample the law either by hoodwinking the pertinent government functionaries or, in a way, through palm-greasing.

It is, an apt time that the Government should take strict action as transporting of, these angels is not possible, sans the active connivance of officials at the airports, seaports, land routes or, via water channels.●