By Asim Shahzad
LAHORE: Sustainable Social Development Organization (SSDO) in collaboration with the British High Commission organized the first meeting of Parliamentary working group, formed to stop the human summegling and trafficking.
Parliamentarians and senior officers from various departments participated in the meeting. The action plan made for the prevention of human smuggling and trafficking and suggestions in this regard were exchanged.
Participants suggested to form a special parliamentary committee to oversee the performance of district administrations and law enforcement institutions at local level in Punjab.
The parliamentarians said that brain drain is not wrong if it is done in a legal way, but it is necessary to give confidence to the youth and tell them that they can start a small business here with the amount of which they are moving to another country.
Acting Consul General of British High Commission in Lahore Gemma Wilson said that preventing illegal migration is a major challenge. Parliamentarians should become change agents and create awareness in the community. In this regard, she emphasized the need for a long-term action plan. MPA Uzma Kardar said that there is need to make a common strategy to attract the youth towards using legal means for migration. Executive Director Sustainable Social Development Organization (SSDO) Syed Kausar Abbas said that SSDO has conducted the capacity building sessions of Parliamentarians and developed provincial action plan on curbing smuggling of migrants in the province. The provincial action plan including submission of legislative business like question, zero hour discussion, adjournment motion, calling attention notice and resolution in the provincial assembly for legislative accountability of the institutions. He said that the action plan also includes district and constituency level awareness campaigns on this issue by the parliamentarians. A course in this regard has been included in the semester as a pilot project in Punjab University, which is creating awareness among the youth. This course will also be included in the curriculum in other universities. TEVTAs role in imparting technical skills and career counseling to the youth will also be enhanced. MPAs Asma Naz, Rukhsana Kausar, Aoon Hameed and others said that there is a need to devise a coordinated strategy to break the strong network of human trafficking and expose the traffickers. Kausar Abbas said that SSDO is playing its full role in this regard while also trying to bring it to the grass root level with the help of parliamentarians. He said that collaboration with various institutions is very important to give confidence to the youth. MPA Waqar Cheema, Khalid Mehmood and other participants emphasized the need to organize district youth dialogues and use the social media plate forms to raise awareness about illegal human trafficking among youth. Members of Parliament Tashfeen, Usama Laghari, Riffat Mehmood, Asifa Khan, Tariq Sobhani, Shabana Nadeem and Neelam Jabbar, along with representatives of the Higher Education Department, TEVTA and other departments including PDU also participated in the discussion.
