Helping Camel Jockeys

Rahimyar Khan, a remote district in Punjab Province on the border of India, was the home for the majority of the children brought to the UAE for camel racing. Located near the Cholistan Desert, the area's topography and climate are similar to the Persian Gulf.

Like the Bedouins, the nomadic tribes that live in this region of Pakistan used camels for transportation, milk and meat. It is difficult to eke out a living in this remote, sparsely populated area and 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty level.

Some poor Pakistani families sent their children away to work in the UAE, hoping they could have a better life and earn money to send back home. Pakistani laborers also took their children with them to the UAE in hopes of putting them to work.

The UAE government's 2005 ban on child jockeys and the use of robots in camel racing put an end to the trafficking of children to be employed as camel jockeys in the UAE.

After the UAE and UNICEF forged their historic partnership, Pakistan was the first to establish a program for repatriating the former child jockeys. To encourage camel owners and others to relinquish the children, officials in the UAE offered an amnesty to those who provided help in locating children working in the UAE.

Since the launch of the UAE/UNICEF program, 735 former camel jockeys have been identified and returned to Pakistan, all but seven of whom have been reunited with their families. In several cases, the government had to use DNA testing to ensure that the children were returned to the right families.

The Pakistani government sent social workers out to the remote villages trying to find former camel jockeys who had returned home prior to 2005.

After the program was extended in 2007, the Pakistan Child Welfare Bureau and UNICEF established a three-person compensation board to review the cases. So far, the board has approved applications from 121 former child jockeys, who were each awarded $1,000. In addition, a number of the children were found to have suffered injuries while employed as camel jockeys; they received awards of as much as $10,000 more.

To receive their awards, the children or guardians were asked to fill out forms describing their experience in the UAE and they were examined by medical doctors to assess the extent of their injuries. Since many of the parents are illiterate, they were provided free legal help to navigate the process and fill out the forms.

One of the challenges for the UAE and its partners has been ensuring that the compensation awards are used to help the children and don't fall into the hands of unscrupulous people, including untrustworthy relatives. To prevent this from happening, the program administrators have set up trust funds for the children.

The government of Punjab Province has also taken steps to ensure that no more children are trafficked into camel racing or other dangerous activities. Since the passage of a tough anti-trafficking law in 2004, the provincial government has tried and convicted 17 gangs involved in child trafficking and sexual abuse.

UNICEF and other child welfare organizations understand that their responsibility to these trafficked children doesn't end with their return to their families. Unless they try to address the poverty that drove many of these parents to sell their children, the problem will resurface.

In Bangladesh, anti-sweatshop activists led a campaign to end child labor in sweatshops and the government forced factories to fire all their underage workers. Later, those activists discovered that some girls had turned to prostitution and other far more dangerous jobs because they needed to earn money for their families.

To prevent that from happening, Pakistani child welfare officials have launched programs to educate villagers about the dangers of child trafficking. They have helped set up a micro-credit facility to provide small loans to the families of former camel jockeys so they can start their own businesses.

Seventeen schools in the region have been designated "child-friendly schools" and have received extra supplies and training so they can address the special needs of the former camel jockeys.

Many of these children were taken at a very young age to the UAE and didn't receive any formal schooling. The government has set up four literacy centers to help these children catch up with their peers. To encourage attendance, the government has offered to provide a monthly cash grant of about $10 to those with an 80% attendance record.

The UAE/UNICEF program won't eliminate the poverty that drove families in Rahimyar Khan to send their children thousands of miles away to earn money to put food on their tables. But in this remote part of southeastern Pakistan, the ground-breaking program has given these former child jockeys a chance for a better future.