Lost children arrive home after years as camel jockey slaves

[emad]

July 09, 2005

Lost children arrive home after years as camel jockey slaves
From Zahid Hussain in Islamabad



CLAD in filthy clothes with their identity cards hanging from their necks, dozens of Pakistani children who had been smuggled to the United Arab Emirates to work as camel race jockeys returned home yesterday.

The 86 children, aged between 4 and 12, had lived a life of virtual slavery for up to seven years, before being traced by welfare groups.

Some were so traumatised that they could not remember their names or where they were from. No relatives or guardians turned up at the airport in Lahore to welcome the long-lost children, who were repatriated under an agreement between the UN Children’s fund and the governments of Pakistan and the UAE.

Most of the children do not know who their parents are, and there is little hope of their ever being reunited.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-1686458,00.html

[progressivebydesign]

1. Well that is just horrendous. No one to meet them?

No hope of reuniting them? Must be a strange place that the parents did not file any type of official document that their child was missing... I mean.. that way they could trace them. Sad..

[yellerpup]

2. Child camel jockeys in Arab countries

are often "sold" by parents or relatives so it's not surprising that no one showed up to meet them for repatriation. I flacked a documentary back in 1998 that decried their plight. "Jockeying" is not really what they do--they are too little to actually ride, but are bound to the camel and the camel does all the racing. They are not given shelter, but live with the animals in sheds (if they're lucky). They are taken so young because they weigh so little and when they become too heavy they are simply abandoned to fend for themselves. Glad to hear that Pakistan is repatriating them, but that is not the only country involved in the trafficking of these baby slaves.

[GCP]

3. This is absolutely horrible

Mankind is, on the whole, a despicable species. It's about time the world was left to the animals.

[krkaufman]

5. Would disagree w/ the percentages...

It's just that a particularly vile subset can do a lot to cast a cloud over us all.

[WhiteTara]

4. that is a tragedy

to be stolen abused and dumped on the tarmac. I hope there are truly compassionate people in Pakistan who will care for these broken little children.
:cry: