TEHRAN, April 27 (AFP) - An Iranian court has sentenced a group of 53 tribesmen to a total of 281 years in prison for luring scores of destitute young girls to work as sex slaves in Pakistan, a judicial source said Sunday.
The senior court official told AFP from Mashhad that the gang, mainly members of an Afghan Baluch tribe living as refugees in Iran, had been handed sentences ranging from lashes to 15 years imprisonment after being found guilty of charges including abduction and slavery.
The gang, backed up by several Iranian accomplices, were caught seeking out poor families around Iran’s holiest city and offering to marry young girls, some as young as 12.
The girls were then whisked away from Iran’s northeast to Afghanistan and then Pakistan, where they were put to work in brothels.
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*Originally posted by underthedome: *
This a widespread problem?
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Depends on how you define "widespread". Yes, prostitution is there in Pakistan, just as it is in probably every country in the world. Its impossible to eliminate prostitution completely. And in this business there must be a lot of victims - girls being forced into prostitution against their will. And thats the bad part.
However, prostitution is not rampant or overt in Pakistan. Typically there are pre-defined neighborhoods for this. In recent years, more expensive prostitutes have moved to more urban areas. However, the police is almost always cracking down on this business. Not necessarily to close it down, but to get some extra bribes from those who are part of this business.
As I said, there are typically pre-defined neighborhoods for prostitution. So, you can call them "red light areas". The problem is that under General Zia's rule (1977 to 1988), the religious government wanted to crack down on this business. So, the result was that these women and their pimps moved out of these specified areas and spread in different parts of the cities. So while previously the prostitution business, to a large extent, was in a defined area, now its all over the place.
Its a simple matter of demand and supply. As long as there are customers, there will be prostitutes.
The sad aspect of this business are these victims, who are forced into lives of sexual slavery against their will.
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*Originally posted by Faisal: *
As I said, there are typically pre-defined neighborhoods for prostitution. So, you can call them "red light areas". The problem is that under General Zia's rule (1977 to 1988), the religious government wanted to crack down on this business. So, the result was that these women and their pimps moved out of these specified areas and spread in different parts of the cities. So while previously the prostitution business, to a large extent, was in a defined area, now its all over the place.
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Fasial, that sounds a very good definition of the word "widespread".:) You can say it is very thin and widespread.:)
