Abdul Hakeem was just six years old when he went to United Arab Emirates to work as a servant.
But the Pakistani youngster ended up as a camel jockey. He came home on Tuesday after losing nine years of his childhood in a sport internationally condemned as a form of slavery.
At 15, Hakeem is oldest of a first batch of 22 Pakistani camel jockeys being sent home after both the UAE and Pakistan launched fresh efforts to end the practice.
Some children as young as three or four, clad in dirty clothes and too shy to utter more than just their names, were among those who flew back to the Pakistani city of Lahore.
Boys are kept in prison-like conditions where they are deliberately underfed to keep them light so the camels can run faster. The children race at speeds of up to 50 km per hour (30 mph).
Rights group say the children are sold to camel owners by agents while UAE authorities say it is their parents who bring them to the country, find them work on ranches and then leave them. Most of the children come from Pakistan, with smaller numbers from Sudan, Bangladesh and Mauritania.
Junior Minister for Overseas Pakistanis, said about 80 percent of the 2,500-3,000 children jockeys in the Gulf are from Pakistan.
Some of the children were sold by their impoverished parents while others were kidnapped and smuggled to the Gulf.
Although in 2002, Pakistan made smuggling children abroad for use as camel riders an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison, but the law is often flouted.
I hope similar process starts with Qatar based camel boy jockeys. Didn't they claim that they are going to use Kamel, the Robot Jockey.
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Haitham, i swear my skips a beat at these stories, i mean i just imagine how scared these children must have been once they were separted from their families… I think of my little cousins and see how happy they are being around their everyday familiar surroundings even if they are not perfect… and imagine them taken away to be put in these conditions… i dont know, these camel owners dont have kids? maybe they dont… who knows.
Are you kidding me Mariam? Don’t you know who the owners are? They are all H.E. and H.M. Emirs and Sheiks, etc…
Slavery is a tradition. In fact I don’t think any of them knows how many kids of his own he has. So how can we expect them to know how many slaves they have? Of course the more he has, the more prestigious he is.
Anyway, let’s credit some of them this step, and I hope all other owners in the Gulf follows.
I have been worked around 10 years in UAE and come across to a lot of people few of them are realy realy nice and decent but few of them just like “JUNGLI” actualy when late Shk. Zayed start giving them money and allow them to enjoy the life the illitrate people got spoiled also that country which showing by their ruler like one of the developed country in the world has no human rights Local people who are the nationals of UAE can do anything they want with their servent or office staff some time they do not pay salary for 4 or 5 months and poor people who comes from India, Pakistan, Bandladesh, Philipine after paying a big amount to the agents get suffer ..THAT COUNTRY HAS DUAL LAW , HUMAN RIGHTS AND POLIES” I pray with my heart may Allah give them guidness and right path or if that is not in their luck save the poor people…..
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