Quake kids sold to sex trade (Pakistani children pawned off)

The Australian ^ | October 24, 2005 | Dean Nelson

[NYer]

SIX-YEAR-OLD Aisha loves the orange blouse and jeans given to her by the kind woman who rescued her from the chaos of the Kashmir earthquake. She snuggles up to the woman, trying to forget the devastation of her village home and the deaths of her parents 16 days ago.

What Aisha does not know is that the woman, Kausar, is a prostitute who has bought her from relatives for 50,000 rupees ($1500) and plans to put her to work in the sex trade as soon as she reaches puberty.

Aisha is not alone. According to welfare agencies, many of the hundreds of girls and boys orphaned by the October 8 earthquake are being targeted by gangs intent on turning them into prostitutes or street beggars.

Other children are being sold for adoption by their parents in acts prompted by the destruction of homes and livelihoods.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's Government is so alarmed by the threat to vulnerable children that it has placed armed guards at all hospitals and ordered that no child is released to anyone until proof of kinship has been verified.

A ban on adoption was announced after hospitals and shelters were besieged by people offering to take Kashmiri orphans. Staff at a hospital in Islamabad say a number of people posing as relatives were caught trying to abduct children.

But Manan Rana, a child protection officer working for United Nations children's fund UNICEF in quake-hit Muzaffarabad, says government in Kashmir has collapsed and officials are unable to provide protection.

No official appears to have noticed when Aisha disappeared. After her home in a village called Arja was wrecked, she was taken to her grandmother's house in the nearby city of Bagh. Kausar, her new "carer", who claims the little girl is a distant relative, heard about her plight from family members.

"Her grandmother was too old to look after the girl. I went to Bagh on October 12 and I got her very cheap. A pimp from Lahore might have paid 100,000 rupees," she said.

"I will provide a good education for her. I would not like her to be a cheap, third-class prostitute. I do care about the girl. I will take good care of her, and then reap the benefit. I'm providing for her protection and I don't care what Allah thinks."

She will auction the girl's virginity when she reaches puberty and expects to get up to $4700 for that alone. "She could start work as soon as she has her first period," Kausar said.

If Aisha refuses to work as a prostitute, she will be sold to a pimp. Kausar would not consider any intervention by journalists.

[Calpernia]

Yes

[newsgatherer]

I see even after 1500 years in existance Muslims still see nothing wrong with slavery.

They raise their kids to go out and blow themsleves up in hopes that they might kill a Jew or a American and you are suprised that they still engage in slavery?

[Americanexpat]

No, I was surprised when I rad about them selling their kids and women in prostitution back in 1999 while working in Qatar. That was before we had seen all the suicide bombers. My eyes were opened then, nothing has changed my opinion since then. Up to that time not many people knew of this slavery. How many people were even aware, or cared, that they trained their kids to be suicide bombers, except the Israelis before 9/11?

[sandbar]

<>>>Anyone got $4700 and a handgun to spare? This woman needs to see the afterlife ASAP.>>>

Forget the $4700, just grab the freaking gun.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

The world divide between good and evil has never been starker. No more subtlety, everything is out in the open.

Our own enemy is the combination of Democrats and the MSM, both supported by foreign money. It is truly a freedom vs slavery, life and death struggle and we had better recognize it as such and stop the drop the hanky good guy stuff in Congress.

[John O]

Kausar would not consider any intervention by journalists.

Interesting that they tried.

However, Kauser was overheard to say "Sorry no early sales!"

[Question_Assumptions]

I don't think we can blame prostitution and child trafficking on Islam.

Agreed. The madam even says that she doesn't care what Allah thinks.

[newsgatherer]

I missunderstodd you, now I can agree with you.

[Paul C. Jesup]

There is a special place in hell for people who knowingly enhance and/or exploit the suffering of others.

Are we talking about the slave traders? The press? Or both?

[Pyro7480]

Well, in this case, the slave traders, but the press has been liable in the past for doing something similar.

[wolfcreek]

Does anyone know if there are passages in the Koran against what these people are doing.

[buickmackane]

I probably can't link to the online archives of the New York Times, but I'd refer you to some stories Nicholas Kristof did a while back.

Kristof paid for the freedom of two teenage prostitutes in Asia (I can't remember what country it was, maybe Thailand or Cambodia), and then documented what happened afterward. One girl made a valiant effort to start a new life. The other girl found herself shunned by her own family when she came home and eventually returned to her madam.

I can understand why it would be harder for a teenager to abandon the only life she has ever known, abusive as it is. By the time Kristof found them, they weren't virgins any more and considered "damaged goods" by their own families. Yet there's no reason why a six-year-old child can't still be saved before her virginity goes on the (it makes me nauseous to even type the words) auction block.

I wish somebody had a couple of those FEMA debit cards to trade for Aisha's freedom.

[GladesGuru]

If I paid the money, it would do the girl no good. Time to wake up and face the harsh reality. In the girl's case, who will provide for her until she is able to function as an adult? Raising a child is not easy, nor is it cheap. Bringing the girl into the USA is also not easy for any prospective parent.

You see, that little Paki girl isn't a Mexican.

While President Bush allows the borders to be criss crossed with paths (littered with human feces and piles of garbage) across private ranch lands, and our public park lands, so that illegal Mexicans can easily enter America, that girl facing a life of prostitution can't easily enter America.

Another hard fact is that the sex industry may be the choice between food and no food for those children, in those cultures. Poverty on a "Turd World" level is hard for Americans to even imagine.

America is now mostly a generation away from the Great Depression, and at its worst, nothing in America ever approached the level of degeneration and desperation ruling the "Turd World".

I wish I had some answers, but until the rest of the "Turd World" accepts that theirs are failed cultures, and begin to follow what works (basically the American model) they will have to sell their children.

I am unconvinced that those parents feel any less badly about such 'sales' than we would. But they have no choice.

Before blaming the "carer" of that girl, do remember that the girl would starve and or freeze this winter if not cared for by someone. And the madam is all that that girl has. A harsh reality, but true.