SECTION 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY “When he met a few people who told him they were Overseas Employment Promoters, he asked them to find him a job. Over the next few months, these agents forged a close relationship with Ali1. He came to trust them. Finally, they told him that his ticket was ready and he would have to travel to Islamabad. From the capital, Ali was taken to Mardan, where, to his utter shock, he was locked up in a room. Those few hours were spent in confusion and growing fear.”2 - Asma Shafi, sister of Ali, a migrant worker currently on death row in Saudi Arabia Migrant workers are an important part of Pakistan’s economy and the labour market.3 Yet the regulation of labour migration in Pakistan remains weak, leaving thousands of mostly male low-wage workers vulnerable to human trafficking, forced labour, ill-treatment in detention overseas and even death. There are close to 11,000 Pakistanis imprisoned in foreign jails, of which over 7,000 are in the Middle East.4 The Pakistan-Saudi migration corridor, in particular, is considered one of the costliest in the world in terms of recruitment costs for economically disadvantaged workers.5 Yet individuals and groups who seek to coerce and deceive individuals seeking employment overseas to smuggle prohibited drugs to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, operate with significant impunity. This report documents the cases of migrant workers who in seeking work and better life prospects abroad ended up being deceived and coerced into smuggling prohibited drugs to the Gulf countries and, ultimately, sentenced to death and executed. It points to the gaps in the recruitment regime for lowwage migrant workers in Pakistan and the inadequacies of the Pakistani government in responding to the incarceration of migrant workers abroad. Section 2 of the report documents the loopholes within the recruitment regime that are exploited by unauthorized intermediaries who operate, illegally, alongside the private firms responsible for the recruitment of workers for jobs overseas known as Overseas Employment Promoters (OEPs). Pakistani law prohibits the use of unauthorized intermediaries. But, in practice, these prohibitions are poorly enforced, and unregistered subagents remain the critical intermediary between prospective workers and employers overseas. This is especially the case for individuals from rural areas who account for a significant portion of all labour migration from Pakistan. Pakistan’s 2,157 licenced OEPs are spread out over the seven cities of Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Malakand District, Quetta and Multan. Due to this, in order to recruit semi-skilled or unskilled workers from more remote areas, licenced OEPs rely on subagents to transmit job offers and to connect with workers. The government’s Overseas Employment Corporation has even fewer branches and lower accessibility, located in just five cities of Pakistan. Because of this, the first contact many individuals have with an “agent” to facilitate work overseas is an unlicensed individual or company operating outside the system that is supposed to regulate labour migration from Pakistan. 1