Camel racing-Child jockeys
Children are often favored as jockeys because of their light weight. It has been reported that thousands of children (some reported as young as 2 years old) are trafficked from countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Pakistan, and Sudan for use as jockeys for camel racing industry in Arab States of the Persian Gulf.[1] Estimates range of 5,000 – 40,000 child camel jockeys in the Persian Gulf region.[2][3]
Camel jockeys: Popular Arab sport costs Pakistani children their sanity
Published: May 8, 2013
Imran (second from the right), a victim of child trafficking, poses with his family in Rahim Yar Khan. PHOTO: ZAHID GISHKORI/EXPRESS TRIBUNE
RAHIM YAR KHAN: Nineteen-year-old Shakil struggles to cope up with grade VII coursework at a government school in Chak 72 Rahim Yar Khan. The school’s headmaster says the boy is mentally unfit. What he does not say is that Shakil, like many others in district, is suffering because of the abuse faced as a child camel jockey in the Gulf states.
Shakil’s case is not an isolated one. At least 200 of some 1,200 boys who were returned to Pakistan in deplorable conditions years ago are still suffering from the trauma.
The sport, the popularity of which rivals that of Formula One, was for years powered by the key ingredient of young boys as jockeys. Being young, they were light and would scream loudly spurring the camels. A steady supply of children from Pakistan satiated the hunger for such jockeys.
The practice continued unabated till the early 2000s when laws, and some technology, sought to put an end to this dark chapter. In 2002 Pakistan ratified the Prevention and Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance (PACHTO) banning trafficking of children to the UAE and other Arab countries. The same year, the UAE also introduced laws against the use of children under the age of 15 as camel jockeys. However, this law was not actively enforced till 2005 when the Unicef and some robots helped end the trend of using boys as camel jockeys.
A lifetime of pain
Shakil’s travail is not the only one at the government elementary school. The school’s headmaster Azam Ahmed reveals Khalil, Shakil’s brother, too suffers the after effects of his horrible past.
Nazir, the boys’ father, tells The Express Tribune that a decade ago a human trafficking agent had lured him with promises of good employment and better education. Instead, the agent smuggled the boys into the UAE to serve as child camel jockeys.
Imran Shakoor in Rahim Yar Khan is much younger than Shakil. He goes to school like Shakil. And like Shakil, Imran struggles at school due to the brutal past he experienced.
“Imran is mentally retarded and can not learn any more in school,” his father Muhammad Shakoor repeats an assessment of the young boy’s teacher.
“My ‘Sheikh’ and my trainers used to continuously beat me—this is what I can recall,” Imran tells The Express Tribune.
A senior physician at Bahawal Victoria Hospital in neighbouring Bahawalpur, Dr Naeem, has a history of treating former child camel jockeys. He says that as many as 34 former jockeys had been admitted in the hospital between 2005 and 2007 for treatment. A majority of them, Dr Naeem notes, were mental patients.
Jockeys being sent despite ban
A decade after being banned, those working on the camel jockey supply chain end in Pakistan have yet to close up shop.
Rahim Yar Khan and the surrounding districts of Dera Ghazi Khan and Bahawalpur were for a long time a popular hunting ground for child traffickers who smuggled children into the Gulf country to serve as jockeys in camel races in return for money. Despite the laws banning the practice, the lustre has yet to wear off.
Imran’s father Muhammad Shakoor confirmed that some parents were still sending their children to the UAE and considered it a lucrative trade.
In village Chak No 72/NP in Rahim Yar Khan, Mohammad Ramzan lives with his nine brothers and three sisters. He tells The Express Tribunethat recently one of this relatives, who doubles as an agent, had taken his son to Dubai via Iran.
“I sent my son to Dubai as I do not have enough money to feed my family,” he says.
There, Ramzan says, his son has been participating in camel racing and that he has become a good rider now.
There is always a buyer if there is a seller
Inspector Intelligence Bureau Bux Taheem who is deputed in Rahim Yar Khan reveals that as many as 12 human trafficking groups are active in the area and smuggle children from the remote areas of the district to Gulf states. Taheem, though, adds that there is parental consent in handing over children to the smugglers.
Parents too poor to feed their families are willing to sell. For those selling, like Shakoor and Ramzan, there is always a buyer.
Makhdoom Ahmed Mehmood is a prominent agriculturist and politician from Rahim Yar Khan. The district is his constituency where he has served at almost all positions of district, provincial and federal governments in a career spanning 26 years. Unsurprising too that he comes from a family of distinguished politicians of the area. Cousin to both Pir Sibghatullah Shah Rashidi (Pir Pagara) and the former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, he currently serves as Punjab’s 34thgovernor. Despite his position and influence in the area, he too has been unsuccessful in putting an end to this menace.
“I’ve been addressing the plights of camel race victims on a priority basis. But I could not stop it as most parents willingly send their children [to become jockeys] for the sake of money.”
He pledges that all the victims will receive their due compensation but does not specify when or how.
Former Director General of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Zaffarullah Khan, whose agency’s job includes catching human traffickers, says the practice is rife in Rahim Yar Khan, Bahawalpur and remote areas of Punjab.
Despite a ban on shifting children to other states under the law, Khan says hundreds of children are still being smuggled to Gulf countries to become camel jockeys.
The lasting solution, the former FIA chief says, is in addressing the root causes of human trafficking by instituting poverty mitigation measures and safety nets to promote economic development and social inclusion with a view to ameliorate the situation.
A legislation titled Prevention and Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance (PCHTO) was enacted in 2002 and rules for which were notified in 2005. The law specifically addresses the protection of victims of human trafficking. It binds responsibility on the Ministries of Interior, Law and Justice, Labour and the Overseas Pakistanis Division.
Former MNA Sardar Arshad Leghari, though, sees two sides of the picture. On one side, he laments that the plight of child camel jockeys “has earned a bad name for Pakistan.”
On the other side, he accuses Gulf States of exploiting children in camel races for their entertainment.
Compensation, not a black and white matter
With much of the child camel jockey culture being curbed in 2005, as many as 1,200 of the estimated 300 children trafficked to the Gulf States from Pakistan as child camel jockeys returned home.
In 2008, a camel jockey victims’ representative at the United Nation Global Forum to Fight against Human Trafficking Sabir Farhat challenged for compensation for the former jockeys in the Supreme Court. After two years, the court ruled in favour of awarding compensation worth around US $1.4 million to the children.
On directions of the court, Farhat said, cheques worth $1,000 per each child were sent by the UAE government. But many cases are still unresolved and many families are yet to receive their due compensation.
Former Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) Rahim Yar Khan district officer Farhan Amir said that the UAE government had sent 750 cheques for the families. Most of the children on the list to receive compensation were employed in camel races from a very young age – some as young as six-years-old – but some never got their cheques.
“Plight of camel jockey still persists with over 200 families still waiting for compensation,” says Minister of Ministry of Interior Affairs Khwaja Siddiq-e-Akbar who adds that dozens of families could not be paid compensation due to problems with their documentary claims.
But Amir, who who used to represent camel jockeys, tells The Express Tribune that there were reports of a small portion of compensatory money being embezzled by the officials engaged in disbursing the cheques. The allegations were dismissed by officials.
Dr Faiza Asghar who supervised camel race victims between 2005 and 2008 as an advisor on child protection to the then Punjab chief minister says nobody knows whether the whole amount was distributed among victim families or not.
Some of the victims’ families have taken their battle to court. FIA legal director Azam told The Express Tribune that over 122 cases had been registered in various courts particularly in Punjab, some which are still waiting for for hearings. “Over 71 cases are pending hearing in the courts.”
Missing jockeys
The issue of compensations has further complications. Even though the FIA records show 3,000 children were trafficked to the Gulf States and only 1,200 returned home, there are as many as 300 children who are specifically listed as missing.
Chairman Burney Trust International and former minister for human rights Ansar Burney says that he has visited Gulf States to take up the issue of children who are still missing. “I will also take up the matter with Ministry of Interior now.”
The Express Tribune had written to the UAE mission in Pakistan for their version on this issue but it refused to comment.
Death in Dubai
Every year, scores of kidnapped children are smuggled from South Asia to the Middle East where they are maimed and killed, all for the amusement of the oil-rich rulers of kingdoms on the camel racing circuit
By Ron Gluckman/Dubai, UAE
ONE OF THE WORLD'S TOP JOCKEYS poses for a photo by the track. His smile says it all. Two front teeth are missing. Raji Shubir ranks with the youngest champions of the race course.
The six-year-old tyke has won scores of trophies. Yet he claims no secret skills. His success stems from two factors known well by the local press and punters. The tiny Indian child is the lightest on the track. And he's always roped to his mount.
The races Raji runs are dangerous brushes with death in the camel pits of Dubai. No riches await young riders like Raji, who are stolen or bought from beggar parents in the slave markets of India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. And fame is a foolish notion. Fans will never see Raji's name in magazines, not even if he is trampled to death during a race or murdered afterwards by jealous child jockeys.But die they do, kicked to death by camels or killed by rival baby riders. Such is the sad, short life in the fast lane for untold slave children shipped to the camel pits of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Raji, whose name was changed for this article, arrived in Dubai like hundreds of other children from the Asian subcontinent. He was sold by his pauper family to a servant of an Arab lord. Raji slipped through immigration, posing as the child of the Indian servant.This is typical, according to authorities in India, who smashed several child-selling gangs during the early 1990s. The kids are sold for as little as US$3. Hundreds more are kidnapped, often toddlers as young as two.
UAE immigration and police turn a blind eye to the baby trade that serves the sordid sports of sheiks and sultans of the oil-rich emirates. Even tales of vicious brutality are brushed aside.
A five-year-old rider was beaten to death by other child jockeys last year. But neither he, nor his six-year-old assailants, were mentioned in media or police reports. "This happens often, too often," says a local reporter, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Arab officials maintain the races are a vital link to the nation's Bedouin birthright. "Our interest in camels is not because it is a good sport or because it is economically important to us, but because the camel is part of our heritage, part of the Arab environment," said Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid, UAE Defense Minister, at the opening of the first International Camel Symposium in Dubai in February 1992.
Camels, called the "Ships of the Desert," have an indisputable place of prominence in UAE history. A 7,000-year-old camel fossil drawing was found on an island near Abu Dhabi, capital of the seven-state confederation known as the United Arab Emirates.
However, modern camel racing resembles nothing from the past. These desert dwellers once raced camels at festivals and weddings, but they never rode so hard for so long. A camel must be trained for years to maintain the ungainly pace of a race. At full throttle, its legs all kick in different directions, a bizarre sort of bounding that is most abnormal for the animal.
And while camels were the mode of transport long before there was oil for the nation's numerous Mercedes and Land Rovers, few racing camels actually originate in the UAE. Dubai, for instance, has an estimated 50,000 of the world's 14 million camels, but only a fraction are born here. Thousands are imported every year from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Africa. The arrivals of the camels are heralded by local headlines that refer to the "VICs" - Very Important Camels.
The costs are astronomical, even without counting perks or adding expenses. Champion camels can sell for US$500,00 or more.
The stakes are equally high. Betting is banned by the government, which, instead, showers winners with prizes and publicity. The races are covered live by television, and written up in the sports pages of the local dailies. The camels become celebrities. The jockeys, often as young as four, are never mentioned. Instead, praise is heaped upon the rich owners of both animals and riders, who claim prizes that include luxury cars, four-wheel-drive trucks, yachts and cash. Last season's finale in April, 1992 featured 15,000 camels and prizes that included over 120 luxury cars and jeeps and US$1.5 million in cash.
Yet participants insist that prizes aren't the appeal of camel racing. "It's a big honor to win," says Khamis Harib, who keeps five camels and has been racing for 20 years. "It's very competitive. If you win, you get your name in the newspaper and on television."
More important than all the cars he has won, Harib says, "If you win, everybody comes to kiss you on the nose."
Long ago, Harib himself was a jockey. "I rode in races when I was five or six," he says through a translator. "But these days, all of them are Indian and Pakistani. For the past three years or so. Before, they were all from Dubai."
There are 15 racetracks throughout the UAE, but nowhere is the sport bigger than in Dubai, which claims two of the six main stadiums, as well as a modern Camel Hospital near the larger of the two, Ned Al Sheba. The season runs from October into April. Races begin at four kilometers, gradually increasing to reach the full 10 kilometers.
The training is grueling, lasting years. Camels are fed a rich diet most likely monitored better than yours or mine. Special factories prepare the grain, with magnet sweeps for metal, and vacuuming of any dirt. Racing camels munch high-nutrition trail mix consisting of milk, dates, honey, barley and clover, sometimes spiked with vitamins. Yet camels often vomit this breakfast before or after the race. Trainers consider that a good sign, indicating a camel that is ready to run.
Camels move at four different speeds, which all involve unique leg patterns. At its fastest, the camel has been clocked at 65 km/h, but not for long. Females can maintain a steady speed of 40 km/h for a full hour, which makes them the more competitive camel.
Fifteen to 20 camels usually participate in each race, but the field grows to six dozen at the close of the season.
Riding camels can be difficult, on or off the race course. The single hump of Arabian camels makes seating a serious quandary. When tourists take short treks, camels are usually kitted with a rope saddle. You try and maintain this perch while holding the rein with one hand and hanging onto the hump with the other.
The bouncing during a race is treacherous. There are stories of children not only being roped to the mounts, but attached with Velcro. It's a dangerous sport. Slipping from the saddle can result in broken bones or being dragged to death.
"Maybe this is why they are using foreign children," says one western worker. "You won't see any Arab children out there."
During random visits to the Dubai track, children from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were all represented, but none from the UAE. The children ran in packs and behaved like standard street urchins. Many were charming as they posed for pictures in between races. All cowered from the trainers.
The tiny riders are kept to a painful pace. As soon as they finish one race, they are pulled from the camels, tossed in vans, and saddled up for the next, which starts within minutes. Jockeys wear the colors of their owners, jogging suits of blue, white, red and green, topped with tiny helmets or headgear. Many are equipped with small radios, so the trainers can signal every swing of the riding crop.The children scream loudly at the starting line, shrieks of pure terror. This is part of the plan. Their startled cries excite the camels, pushing them to top speeds. Trainers say it is impossible to find Arab children who will scream with such fright at the camels.
As the camels lurch around the sandy track, a convoy of vans follow on a ring road. Video cameras catch the action, which is replayed on television screens mounted on poles in front of the viewing stands.
There are several segregated sections. Sheiks and sultans claim the luxury boxes in the middle, while common folk sit off to the right. The last section is for western guests and gawking tourists.
Tea and tiny sandwiches are served in an environment that reeks of colonialism, all the more startling since Dubai and the other emirates tossed out the British in the 1960s. Still, relations remain close. British nationals are the only visitors who can move with even a mockery of freedom about the UAE. All other visitors must obtain sponsors for visas, even the baby jockeys.
Yet, when child-selling gangs have been busted in India, the investigation never goes beyond the local buyers and sellers. Nobody questions how the kids can clear immigration so easily, when even the global jetset is grounded.
"We believe that the trade can only be stopped if the authorities in the receiving countries take steps to control the issuing of entry visas to children under 18," says Anne Marie Sharman, a spokesperson for Anti-Slavery International, in London. She adds that the group has protested through British diplomatic channels and received assurances that UAE law prohibits children under the age of 11 from racing.
Indeed, Dubai officials, when queried for this story, responded with written statements that the tracks are closely monitored to ensure no children under the age of 11 are involved. However, no riders over the age of eight could be found during several spot checks of the track. "They become too heavy," confided a trainer.
Middle East Watch, the human rights group, has been considering an investigation of violations in the UAE, including those reported in the camel pits. Anti-Slavery International worries about what happens when these children grow too old to race. Local reporters are afraid to probe that matter, as well.
"We're not allowed to print news stories on the races, on what goes on behind the scenes," says one local reporter, blaming strict state control of UAE media. "It's simply too controversial. We can't print anything critical of the government. It's not allowed."
Nor are race officials willing to lift the veil of secrecy for foreign reporters. Repeatedly denied access to the young riders, this reporter walked among them and was immediately accosted by a muscular guard. He twisted my camera gear and threatened arrest until a roll of film of the baby jockeys was surrendered - the first I've lost to a goon anywhere in over a decade of snooping.
"We've had problems before with reporters," explains my guide, apologizing for the rudeness. Not of the races themselves, but my rough treatment. "They just wouldn't understand in the West," he adds.
But in Dubai, the situation is condoned at every level, including the government, from immigration authorities to police. It's more than status quo, it's what happens when society standards are set by the state. In a kingdom ruled by oil, where the media is muffled and everyone sets aside ethics to placate the sheiks and sultans.
Locals accept the races, even if they don't participate. Arabs hold to the heritage line. Those of Indian descent, who might be expected to express outrage, especially since they outnumber Dubai natives by three to one, accept the situation as just another ugly condition of wealth. And westerners are noticeably nervous to broach the subject, especially when notepads are present.
"Besides, this may sound like bad taste," says one western worker, "but the kids probably have a better life here than at home."
Then, he waits for the taste of the statement to settle, and adds: "We all do."
Ron Gluckman is an American reporter based in Hong Kong, who researched this story during a trip to Dubai and several other states of the United Arab Emirates in 1992. This report was soundly criticized by officials in Dubai and across the UAE, as was a widely-shown BBC documentary that followed this report. However, the facts in the story were never repudiated.
In 1993, the UAE announced a ban on child jockeys, but the law is widely ignored. In mid-1999, authorities rescued many children from the camel racing circuit, including one tyke who became a baby jockey after being smuggled in from Pakistan as a 5-year-old.
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