PAKISTAN FACTS ON PROSTITUTION

There have been 1 million Bangladeshi and more than 200,000 Burmese women trafficked to Karachi, Pakistan. (Indrani Sinha, SANLAAP India, "Paper on Globalization & Human Rights")

A Bengali or Burmese woman could be sold in Pakistan for US$1,500 - 2,500 - depending on age, looks, docility and virginity. For each child or woman sold, the police claim a 15 to 20 percent "commission." ("Rights-South Asia: Slavery Still A Thriving Trade," IPS, 29 December 1997)

200,000 Bangladeshi women have been trafficked to Pakistan for the slave trade and prostitution. (Trafficking in Women and Children: The Cases of Bangladesh, p.8, UBINIG, 1995)

200,000 Bangladeshi women were trafficked to Pakistan in the last ten years, continuing at the rate of 200-400 women monthly.

(CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

In Pakistan, where most of trafficked Bengali women are sold there are about 1,500 Bengali women in jail and about 200,000 women and children sold into in the slave trade. (estimates by Human Rights organizations in Pakistan, Trafficking in Women and Children: The Cases of Bangladesh, p.14, UBINIG, 1995)

There are over 200,000 undocumented Bangladeshi women in Pakistan, including some 2,000 in jails and shelters. Bangladeshis comprise 80 percent, and Burmese 14 percent, of Karachi’s undocumented immigrants. (Zia Ahmed Awan, affiliate with Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid, Sindh police report in 1993, "Rights-South Asia: Slavery Still A Thriving Trade," IPS, 29 December 1997)

Auctions of girls are arranged for three kinds of buyers : rich visiting Arabs (sheiks, businessmen, visitors, state-financed medical and university students), the rich local gentry, and rural farmers. (CATW - Asia Pacific "Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific" (19)

Bangladeshi and Burmese women are being kidnapped, married off to agents by unsuspecting parents, trafficked under false pretenses, or enticed by prospects of a better life, into brothels in Pakistan. Border police and other law enforcement agencies are well aware of the trafficking through entry points into Pakistan like Lahore, Kasur, Bahawalpur, Chhor and Badin. (Sindh police report in 1993, "Rights-South Asia: Slavery Still A Thriving Trade," IPS, 29 December 1997)

Nepalese and Bangladeshi woman and girls are trafficked under false pretenses, such as jobs, then are forced into prostitution in brothels in Pakistan. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

A rise in trafficking of girls, aged 8-15, in Pakistan has occurred during this last decade. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

A Pakistani woman was threatened with contempt of the Supreme Court if she did not allow her ex-husband to have sex with her. Conjugal rights were reinstated to her ex-husband, although she has since remarried. If she refuses to allow her ex-husband to have sex with her she will be punished according to the law. (Anwar Iqbal, "Wife faces contempt in sex case," United Press International, 9 May 1998)

SOURCE:www.paralumun.com