Islamabad, March 7 – Pakistan will continue to see disappearances buried in administrative records rather than being investigated as crimes, unless trafficking is recognized not only as a humanitarian crisis but also as an institutional vulnerability. Such neglect enables organized criminal networks to flourish and undermines the credibility of the authorities, a report said on Saturday.
According to a report in the Pakistani daily, 'The Friday Times', police in the Sadiqabad region of Pakistan's Punjab province reunited an elderly woman with her family on February 14 after she had gone missing as part of a routine procedural recovery – an incident that did not attract national attention.
"However, in Pakistan, such outcomes are not typical. For every missing woman who is found, many others disappear into circumstances later categorized as abduction, migration, domestic disputes, or voluntary departure. What is often overlooked is how many of these cases intersect with poverty, gender inequality, and organized trafficking networks," it stated.
Citing the '2025 Trafficking in Persons Report', issued by the US Department of State, the report noted that Pakistani authorities identified 37,303 trafficking victims in the latest reporting year, compared to 29,113 the previous year. Among the 26,613 identified victims of sex trafficking in Pakistan, over 21,000 were women, who also constituted nearly half of the 9,917 victims of forced labor.
"Many trafficking cases do not begin as trafficking investigations but as missing persons complaints: by the time exploitation is confirmed, evidence has often dissipated. For international observers, trafficking in Pakistan is often understood primarily through cross-border migration routes, and with good reason," it detailed.
"Pakistan is deeply embedded in regional and transnational trafficking networks. Routes run westward through Balochistan into Iran, onward to Turkey, and eventually toward Europe's Mediterranean crossings. Others move south by sea toward the Gulf states. Women are trafficked through both irregular smuggling corridors and formal visa channels, including work and pilgrimage visas that are later exploited. But these cross-border routes do not begin at the border; they begin in villages," it further mentioned.
Despite thousands of trafficking-related cases registered annually, the report said, conviction rates remain disproportionately low, with law enforcement agencies, including Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), facing constraints in investigative capacity, jurisdictional overlaps, and evidentiary hurdles.
"Many trafficking cases do not begin as trafficking investigations. They begin as missing persons complaints. By the time exploitation is confirmed, evidence has often dissipated, and victims are under pressure from families or communities not to pursue prosecution," The Friday Times quoted one senior FIA official, as saying on condition of anonymity.
The report further said, "Failure to treat missing women cases as potential trafficking investigations weakens institutional credibility. When disappearances are normalized as private family matters rather than investigated as potential organised crime indicators, criminal networks operate with relative impunity."