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| Afghanistan |
| Rights group concerned about human smuggling in Aghanistan |
| 2016-11-01 |
| Afghan rights oversight group, Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium (HRRAC), on Monday said poor leadership within government and a surge in violence have led to a sharp rise in human trafficking in Afghanistan. A survey conducted by the watchdog reveals that at least 47 percent of Afghans believe that security threats, terrorist attacks and dysfunction within government are the fundamental causes for the increase in human smuggling. "The research indicates that issues such as security threats in different regions of the country are the ‎main reasons for ‎an increase in human smuggling, which shows government's failure. Government has failed to prevent the growth of mafia involved in human smuggling," the HRRAC chief Attaullah Khan said on Monday. Meanwhile, a number of Afghan civil society activists urged government to outline a working strategy that could help to curb the trend. They said human smuggling is a big threat for Afghanistan compared with drug trafficking. "UN statistics show that the income achieved from human smuggling is between $8 and $31 billion USD annually while the annual income of drug smugglers is not equal to this," said civil society activist Sher Khan Sahak. "Crime investigation department of the Ministry of Interior so far has arrested dozens of smugglers who by exploiting travel companies and by making fake documents are involved in this trade and we have referred them to the legal and judicial institutions," said Jamaluddin, a member of the anti-trafficking committee of the interior ministry. Statistics reveal that more than 300,000 Afghans left the country over the past two years with the majority of them using illegal routes run by human smugglers. |
| Posted by:badanov |