SEXUAL ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION OF BOYS IN SOUTH ASIA A ...

punishment. 363 The Trafficking Ordinance protects both boys and girls under the age of 18.
However, the legislation only address cross border trafficking. According to article 3(i) of the
Ordinance, which states:
Whoever knowingly plans or executes any such plan for human trafficking
into or out of Pakistan for the purpose of attaining any benefit, or for the
purpose of exploitative entertainment, slavery or forced labour or adoption in
or out of Pakistan.
The law does not address internal trafficking, which probably accounts for the majority of
trafficking cases of both boys and girls in Pakistan, as elsewhere in the region. Although
sections of the Pakistan Penal Code on abduction and sale of persons can be applied to
trafficking, the government often uses Sections 17-23 of the Emigration Ordinance to
prosecute cases of internal trafficking. The penalties under this section are mild.
The Trafficking Ordinance has a definition of trafficking that includes “obtaining, securing,
selling, purchasing, recruiting, detaining, harbouring or receiving a person”. The perpetrator
may be male or female, or an organized criminal group. The definition complies with the
Palermo Protocol with regard to defining the crime as independent of a person’s consent, if
illicit means are applied. However, a separate definition of child trafficking independent of
the use of illicit means is not offered.
While the Hudood Ordinance forbids buying, hiring or selling a person for the purpose of
prostitution, these provisions address only women and girls. The only section that could apply
to boys as well as women and girls is one prescribing penalties for someone who “kidnaps or
abducts any person in order that such person may be subjected […] to the unnatural lust of
any person”. 364
The Penal Code 365 does not explicitly mention trafficking, but the crime is addressed through
sections on procuring (Section 366A), importation into Pakistan (Section 366 B) kidnapping
or abducting (367, 367A) and selling or buying of a person (Sections 371A and 371B). With
the exception of procuring and importation, these sections apply to boys as well as girls. The
Penal Code does not address other mechanisms of trafficking such as recruitment,
transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt a victim. It penalizes those who take or entice
girls under 16 from their lawful guardians but protects boys from abduction only until age 14.
As well, by requiring ‘lawful guardianship’, the Code does not extend protection to children
living on the street, war orphans, abandoned children and others without lawful guardians. 366
Kidnapping or abducting a child under 14 with the intent that the child will be ‘subject to the
lust’ of another person applies to both males and females and is severely punished, with death
or life imprisonment. While this section does not protect children between ages 14 and 18,
363
ECPAT International and Pakistan Paediatrics Association, 2006, ‘Situational analysis report on prostitution
of boys in Pakistan (Lahore and Peshawar)’.
364
Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance 1979.
365
, accessed on 16 March 2010.
366
UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2009 ‘South Asia in Action: Preventing and responding to child
trafficking: Analyses of anti-trafficking initiatives in the region’.
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