EDITORIAL: Sad and scary stories about illegal migrants keep appearing every now and then. A very disturbing report has emerged now, this time from Myanmar rather than the Mediterranean Sea.
Who would want to go to that back of beyond - unless it was a stop en route to a prosperous destination in ASEAN or Europe?
But a press report makes the shocking disclosure that more than 500 Pakistani youth, including dozens of women, most of them well-educated, had travelled to Thailand lured by fraudulent online job advertisements, only to end up getting trafficked into the neighbouring Myanmar’s lawless border areas.
There, deprived of their passports and confined to labour camps, they have been forced to commit financial crimes, such as credit cards frauds, online scams, crypto currency-related illegal activities and other financial offences.
Stripped of freedom they face constant physical and psychological abuse, says the report. Eleven of them recently tried to swim across a river to freedom in Thailand, tragically five people drowned while six others survived to tell woeful tales of their experiences.
According to another report, 52,000 persons have been barred from travelling to the US, UK and some Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE. These individuals were placed on exit control list after getting deported due to illegal entry and/or, in the case of Arab countries, of involvement in other unlawful activities, including begging, prompting host governments to tighten visa requirements. A vast majority of the migrants are young, educated people who want better lives for themselves and their families.
As per the data of the Bureau of Immigration and Overseas Employment, 789,837 Pakistanis left the country in 2024 for employment abroad. In the year before 811,469 headed towards greener pastures abroad in pursuit of rewarding job opportunities. These, of course, were legal emigrants.
Countless others, like the ones stranded in Myanmar, undertake hazardous journeys by selling family properties or borrowing money to pay trafficker in the hopes of finding gainful employment.
Hundreds of them have died at sea or suffered torture and exploitation at the hands of human traffickers. Yet more and more remain willing to put their lives at risk to escape difficult economic conditions, socially suppressive environment or persecution. It’s a national embarrassment.
It is vain to expect the government to address root causes of migration. The least it can and must do is to devise a well thought-out action plan to prevent organised criminal gangs from abusing aspiring young persons for financial gains.
Last month, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), announced having arrested 458 people smugglers and their agents. It also claimed to have apprehended 37 proclaimed offenders involved in two boat tragedies off Greece’s coast.
The agency said it had started a crackdown on these elements on the directives of interior ministry, which says a lot about the place sycophancy has in our political culture. Was it not the FIA’s duty to curb illegal migration? Why did it need to be directed to do that? At his rate, it would not be surprising if the big fish in this nefarious business remain scot-free.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025