The Arab sheikhs on their annual bird hunts in Pakistan also run side errands: kidnapping or buying little boys for use in sport.
Intense media interest forced many of the Gulf kingdoms to ban the use of children under 15 for camel racing. “The move failed miserably because child traffickers simply got fake passports which stated a four-year-old’s age as 16,” says Mr Burney.Most of the repatriated children hail from the south-east Punjab districts of Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan and Rahimyar Khan… These districts are the preferred hunting grounds for Gulf sheikhs, some of whom go there every year to hunt the houbara bustard… The three districts are also home to the Cholistan - one of Pakistan’s two main deserts and one of the few areas in the country where camels are regularly used for travel and trade. [Link]
These 40,000 kids are imprisoned, and many are raped:
… the boys are kept in terrible prison-like conditions where they are deliberately underfed to keep them light so the camels can run faster. [Link]It is not uncommon for child jockeys to fall off and be injured while racing, and their illegal status means race track owners are often reluctant to take them to hospital… the boys often arrive with broken hands or broken legs. And many, he says, have been sodomised.
One boy shows me the scar he was left with after being trampled by a camel. Crudely stitched, it stretches from his chest down to his hips… “There was a child in the camp, and because he wanted to leave the camp and go to Dubai, one of the racetrack owners ran over the child in a truck and killed him,” he tells me. [Link]
Addicted to petro-riyals, the Pakistani government turns a blind eye:
It is easy to convince parents here to part with their children for a camel jockey’s wage. They may get a meagre $82 a month but it is a sum a family would struggle for months to earn… the government is reluctant to act for fear of causing diplomatic embarrassment to valued Arab friends… [Link]
Some have begun testing robot jockeys to put a dent in the slave trade:
“The mechanical jockey is light in weight and receives orders from the instructor via a remote control system fixed on the back of the camel,” the statement says. Illustrations previously released show a system capable of leaning from side to side and pulling on the reins… An unnamed Swiss company was reportedly paid $1.3m to develop the robotic jockeys, which will be sold for around $5500 each.Iagnemma says making a robotic jockey that could automatically control a camel during a race would be an even more interesting problem. “The logical extension is to develop an autonomous jockey,” he says. “And then, I guess, a robot camel.” [Link]
