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When poverty makes the difference

Parents push their children to camel jockeying

PORIMOL PALMA
Acute poverty and family crises create the context for human trafficking, pushing parents to give their children to unscrupulous brokers, who traffic the children
for the camel jockey trade in the Middle East.
In depth interviews with the parents of children who have recently returned from the United
FROM PAGE 16
Arab Emirates (UAE) under a government initiative have revealed these facts.
Five years ago, when they were nearly starving with only two meals a day,
Phulmoti, 40, and Abdul Aziz, 75, of Barura upazila under Comilla were easily lured by two local brokers to send their children, Tareq, 10 and Zahed, 12 to Dubai.
Altogether, Abdul Aziz has 13 children, eight from his first wife, Hazera Khatun, and five from his second, Phulmoti. The couple lives in a two-room house on eight decimals of land at Puranchal village. Abdul has not a single piece of land for cultivation.
The possibility of a job for their children was therefore a welcome prospect. "The brokers promised that they would train and employ the children in the garments factories," Phulmoti told The Daily Star after recently receiving Zahed and Tareq from the BNWLA officials at the Kasami Governement Primary School at Barura.
"What would we do…tell me…at that time we had no other way…we could not provide them with food nor could we have. So, we thought if they could work and had good food… what is the wrong," Phulmoti said.
"Surely I would not hand over my sons to the dalals (brokers) if I knew that they would have to ride on camels and undergo such tortures…I would even beg for them, but not allow them to be sent," Phulmoti regrets.
Officials of the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers' Association (BNWLA) say these are common scenarios. Victims of trafficking are from very poor families or families where the parents are not present, making the children vulnerable.
Another woman, Saleha Begum, 30 of Barura gave her son Lokman, 10, to her relative Shefali to be taken to the UAE. "Shefali said Lokman and her son Sajeeb would go to school and she would work in the UAE, so I happily handed over my son to her."
The mother of four sons and one daughter, Saleha said her husband Shajahan had no job. He also had no land, and worked only 2 to 3 days a week as a day labourer. For the last 6 months he has not even been at home, she said.
"How could I allow sending my little Lokman to a foreign land far from me? I would never do it if my husband could manage our living," Saleha adds.
Shefali, 23, of Shakpur village of Barura, who took Saleha's son to Dubai, was also a divorced lady. She said she was living a miserable life with no support from her parents after her husband divorced her about 4 years ago.
"Just at that time, a 'dalal' proposed to me that I could go to Dubai and work, but I would have to take at least two children with me. The dalal said the children would go to school. Then I pursued Saleha allow me to take Lokman," Shefali said. But after the arrival in the UAE, she was not given any employment. Instead, the children were taken to the camel races, she added.
According to BNWLA officials, it is always hard for a mother to hand over her children. But the harder reality of hunger, familial and social deprivation make them so desperate that they do not hesitate to leave their own children to someone else, they added.
"But still, the blame cannot be imposed on poverty. The way these children were taken to a foreign land by false promises also falls under trafficking," said BNWLA Executive Director Advocate, Salma Ali.
Investigations have also revealed that many of the fake parents who accompanied the children while going to the UAE and coming back showed the children as their own in the passports. This is also called trafficking, she added.
Salma Ali cautioned that greater care for the poor is required to check their vulnerability. "The ultra poor of the country need special care from the government and nongovernment organisations to help curb the reasons of trafficking," she observed.