A US-funded IOM programme to raise awareness of human trafficking
and provide support to vulnerable families at risk in earthquake
shattered communities in northern Pakistan has helped 238 families
to start new income-generating activities and new lives.

The families, many of them headed by widows, were identified by
IOM counter trafficking teams between March and August in
Pakistan-administered Kashmir and North West Frontier Province -
the areas worst effected by the October 8th 2005 earthquake, which
left some 75,000 people dead and 3.5 million homeless.

The 6-month IOM programme, funded by the US State
Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration
(PRM), and implemented in close cooperation with the Pakistani
authorities and NGO partners, focused on raising public awareness
of the threat of human trafficking in communities uprooted, in
shock and financially ruined by the earthquake.

IOM social mobilizers, who brought the counter trafficking
message to the Muzaffarabad and Mansehra IDP camps, worked with
camp leaders and activists to mobilize public opinion against human
traffickers and to identify the survivors most at risk –
mainly women and children with no means of economic support.

Instead of providing money or food, the programme opted to
provide them with ways to make a living and become financially
independent. These included providing livestock for milking and
breeding, sewing machines to start tailoring businesses and stock
for small food and retail outlets.

“After losing my husband and house in the earthquake, I
was resigned to my fate. But these four goats (provided by the
programme) have given me new hope. I will be able to earn some
money by selling the milk and meet the needs of my three
children,” says Sughra at Chela Bandi camp in
Muzaffarabad. 

For more information, please contact:

Saleem Rehmat

IOM Islamabad

Tel. +92.3008565967

E-mail: "mailto:srehmat@iom.int">srehmat@iom.int