Every morning, Aziz, 12, cycles to school, his satchel balanced carefully over the handlebars. His life has changed dramatically over the past year and the former camel jockey, who spent five years in the Gulf until his return in 2005, is beginning to adapt to a different way of life.

"I will never forget the camels and being strapped onto those beasts. But I now hope I can put that behind me, get an education and go on to work in an office," Aziz said in his village near the southern Punjab town of Muzaffargarh.

Muzaffargarh district, with a population of around 3 million, is among the poorest districts of Pakistan's populous Punjab province. Over the years, families from southern Punjab, have sold small boys, most aged between four and eight years, for use as camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other Gulf countries, where the sport remains a popular pastime.

The children are used because they are light, which allows the camel to run faster. Their screams of terror spur on the animal. The children are deliberately underfed to keep down their weight, and many have suffered terrible injuries after falling off the camels.

The use of the child camel jockeys, usually bought from their parents or other relatives for around US $1,500, was banned in the UAE under a new law passed in May 2005, with violators facing jail terms of up to three years and/or a fine of almost $14,000.

Since then, under a Pakistan government initiative supported by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), at least 600 former child jockeys have returned home.

Most are now back with their families, with some of the parents claiming they had no idea that the children would be used as jockeys.

"We thought they would be given jobs and would gain an opportunity to escape misery and poverty here," said Muhammad Khurram, an uncle of one of the boys sent to the UAE from Muzaffargarh.

All the families selling the children, in exchange for either a lump sum or monthly payment of the children's 'salaries' are extremely poor – often with six, seven or eight other children at home.

The return of a child from the Gulf, in some cases after five or more years away, is not easy to adjust to for either party.

The Lahore-based Child Welfare Protection Bureau (CWP, run by the Punjab government, has been engaged from the start to receive and rehabilitate the returning children. It continues to keep a close watch on the situation of those who have returned.

According to data maintained by the CWPB,227 children have returned to their homes in Rahimyar Khan 131 to Muzaffargarh, 18 to Multan, 50 to Dera Ghazi Khan, and the rest to other areas in the southern Punjab . Six of the children remain at the CWPB, which has facilities to house over 200 children. Efforts continue to trace their parents, but Dr. Faiza Asghar, who heads the centre, explained, "these children were very young when they were sent to the Gulf. They have no idea who their parents are, or where they formerly lived. We will keep them until they are at least 18, and of course provide for their education, if their families cannot be tracked down."

Today, the six boys at the CWPB don smart uniforms for school and at the centre's playground, smile broadly and confidently at the cameras – a change from the terrified expressions many child camel jockey victims wore when they first returned home in 2005.

In other cases, DNA testing has been used to reunite families. Parents taking back children have also frequently been warned of criminal action should they attempt to sell off children again. Sixty people involved in human trafficking have, according to official figures, been arrested and are being tried under the relevant laws.

"We are continuing to monitor most of the children who have returned, including the 325 brought back by the CWPB who are now with their families," Asghar explained. Some children had considerable difficulty in adapting to the environment they had left behind before going to the Gulf, and were traumatised by their harsh experiences there, she added.

"Each case is different. Some of the children are still undergoing psychological treatment and facing problems, while others are not," the doctor said.

In some cases, the relatives of former jockeys interviewed by IRIN stated that the children seemed "distant and resentful" and were unwilling to attend school or perform household chores. In fact, some of these children aged six or seven years when they left, returned as angry, embittered teenagers – with siblings or parents in some cases not pleased to have them back in cramped family homes, where food and resources were already scarce.

A Community Action Plan (CAP) to create awareness about the trafficking of children, and to aid the rehabilitation of former camel jockeys, is being carried out by UNICEF, in cooperation with the CWPB and its sub-office in Rahimyar Khan.

The programme includes the education of children, and focuses on providing healthcare facilities, micro-financing, safe water, and social uplift schemes within communities.


Almost all the children now resettled in the Punjab are back at school. Six hundred bicycles have been provided to returning children by the CWPB to enable them to reach schools, help them resume something resembling normal life, and gain an education that could in the future help them to lead normal lives.


Article : Alertnet, 3 january ,2007.