Human Trafficking Information System (HUTIS) of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is not working properly, bringing the human trafficking process to a grinding halt. The FIA headquarters received the summaries that HUTIS is not working properly in Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, but no efforts were made to restore the stalled system at the two centres, which are vulnerable to human trafficking, well informed sources in FIA revealed to Business Recorder on Wednesday.
They said that the system has not been working smoothly at FIA Zonal Office Karachi and Zonal Office Peshawar due to some technical problem. The computers installed on both the centers are not working properly and no efforts were made to restore the system, they added.
They said that combating menace of human trafficking needs effective efforts. A task force comprising Coast Guard, local police, FIA and Frontier Corps was constituted to monitor the border areas, but lack of proper management is hindering the whole process. They said that human traffickers are using different routes for their dirty business and institutions remained unable to check the menace due to lack of co-ordination and proper management.
They said that unemployment and poverty are main cause of human trafficking, as due to poverty and unemployment people are using this short-cut and falling prey to human traffickers. The situation has changed world over and it is imperative to give people awareness to avoid going abroad through unfair means.
HUTIS has been established in FIA and was interlinked with all zonal offices of the agency. A report of the FIA revealed that 1755 human traffickers were arrested during 2009 and 1779 in 2010, while FIA takes stern action against human traffickers, smugglers, facilitators and sub agents and succeeded in arresting 42 most wanted traffickers during last two years.
According to a report of the FIA, it was learnt that the agency established Anti-Trafficking Units at Provincial Police HQs for combating international human trafficking, besides Inter Agency Task Force (IATF) and has intercepted 10703 illegal migrants in 2008, 5601 in 2009 and 3434 in 2010.
To effectively eradicate the menace of human trafficking, the FIA formed bilateral joint working groups with four countries, including Oman, UK, Turkey and Australia, while trilateral joint working groups have been established among Pakistan-Iran-Turkey and Pakistan-Turkey-Greece. The report reveals that quadrilateral joint working groups have been established among Pakistan-Iran-Turkey-Greece and Pakistan -Afghanistan-Iran-Turkey.
With the aim to make effective anti-human trafficking efforts, the FIA has replaced the Personal Identification Secure Comparison Evaluation System (PISCES) with Integrated Border Management System (IBMS). It has replaced the old manual passport with MRP (Machine Readable Passports) to block the fake passport being used in human trafficking.
The FIA has vigorously pursued the cases of human smuggling and has challaned 13581 persons during 2009 out of which 4472 were convicted, while during 2010, FIA challaned 11370 human smugglers out of which 3377 were convicted.