Fifty captured Afghan children sent back through Torkham border

WEB DESK: Fifty children who illegally made their way to Pakistan from Torkham border have been sent back on Sunday without any charges due to ‘humanitarian’ grounds. The children were let go owing to the intervention of a tribal jirga.

According to Dawn, the children out of which 17 were girls managed to enter after dark by cutting the fence around border. Most of them were less than 10 years of age, and did not have any legal travel documents.

Local police shared that the authorities were set to book the children under 14 Foreign Act but agreed to the request of five-member Jirga asking the children to be repatriated without any legal proceedings.

Pak-Afghan Torkham border partially reopens after 25 days

It was told by the Tehsil council chairman Khalid Shinwari that smugglers had been using children to carry the muggle goods to and from Pakistan. Some of the children are also being used for drug trafficking.

Around 700-800 children have been involved in such activities and smuggle items like cigarettes, toiletries, eatables among others while they take backed packed juice, sugar and dairy products.

These children receive PKR5000 to PKR6000 per trip from the smugglers in Afghanistan and a mere PKR200 to PKR400 from the handlers in Pakistan. This of course exposes children to a exploitative system as well.

The border security initiated a crackdown against such children in 2021 and enrolled them in school as well but most of them got lured back to the smuggler groups. Before the policies became stringent, the number of children involved in these activities ran into thousands, and now has been brought down to 700 to 800. Most of the children come from impoverished families or those who have been displaced.