The US has imposed sanctions on Pakistan after Islamabad refused to take back its citizen deportees and visa over-stayers from America, warning that it may withhold visas of Pakistanis beginning from its senior officials.
The State Department on Friday said that consular operations in Pakistan remain unchanged as of now but as a result of such a sanction mentioned in a Federal Register notification dated April 22, the US may withhold visas of Pakistanis beginning with its senior officials.
Pakistan is the latest to join the list of 10 nations that have been imposed with sanctions under a US law according to which countries refusing to take back deportees and visa over-stayers will be denied American visas.
Notably eight of these countries have been slapped with such visa sanctions under the Trump administration. Two of them, Ghana and Pakistan have been included in the list this year.
The other countries include Guyana in 2001, the Gambia in 2016, Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea, and Sierra Leone in 2017, Burma and Laos in 2018.
Under Section 243 (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Secretary of State is required to discontinue granting immigration or non-immigrant visas to a nation upon receiving notice from the Homeland Security Secretary that the country has denied or is unreasonably delaying accepting a citizen, subject, national or resident of that country.
The State Department tried to downplay the impact of the sanctions on Pakistan.
Consular operations in Pakistan remain unchanged, a State Department Spokesperson told PTI when asked about the federal register notification.
This is a bilateral issue of ongoing discussion between the US and Pakistani governments and we are not going to get into the specifics at this time, the spokesperson said.
Former Pakistan's Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, feels that this will make things difficult for Pakistanis.
This measure will create hardship for Pakistanis who want or need to travel to the US and could have been avoided if Pakistani authorities had not ignored American requests to respect their legal requirements for deportation,Haqqani told PTI, days after the federal register notification.
He said that Pakistan's refusal to accept its citizens deported from the US is not new.
Pakistan's refusal to accept every Pakistani citizen deported from the US is not new. It seems that the US is no longer willing to overlook a wide range of official Pakistani behaviour. Bonhomie has been replaced by sanctions and restrictions based on Islamabad's policy decisions, Haqqani said.
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Showing posts with label Burma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Burma. Show all posts
Monday, 29 April 2019
Saturday, 14 May 2016
Cheap Flights And Internet Encouraging Sex Tourism
Sex Tourism has “expanded” into new destinations across the world, claims a new report, which blames cheap flights and the Internet for creating a new generation of predators.
Opportunities for travellers to abuse women and children have “soared” in the past two decades, the Global Study on Sexual Exploitation of Children in Travel and Tourism said.
The report, which is considered the most comprehensive ever compiled on the sex tourism industry, also identifies countries which have emerged as new destinations for abusers.
These include Portugal, Moldova and the Ukraine in Europe, and also Burma, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia in Southeast Asia.
The report also said sex tourists are no longer being seen as wealthy, middle aged Westerners who travel to underdeveloped countries to seek children to abuse.
The UN-backed study says abusers are also often not tourists, but could be business travellers or expatriates who are ‘situational’ offenders, rather than paedophiles.
The study says the growth in opportunities for the abuse of children and women is directly linked to the boom in travel and the wider use of the Internet.
“The vulnerability of children has increased dramatically in the past 20 years as travel, tourism soared,” the report said.
“Although the precise scope is not yet measurable, there are alarming indicators that this crime is persistent and widespread.
“The Global Study has also demonstrated, undeniably, that the increasing use of the Internet has enabled offenders to groom children online, exchange information and advice on how to abuse children and avoid detection, and in some cases ‘book’ children in advance.”
The report, which was released by global child protection network ECPAT, charts the increase in sex tourism over the last two decades.
It was compiled with information from more than 70 global child protection agencies.
“Twenty years ago the offender was seen as a white, wealthy, middle-aged male peadophile from a developed country vacationing in a developing country with the intention of having sex with a child,” it adds.
“Now we understand that more children are being abused by tourists and travellers from their own country or region than by people who have travelled from other parts of the world.”
The report notes, for example, that Japanese, Chinese and South Korean tourists are now more likely to be offenders in Southeast Asia – a traditional sex tourism hotspot – because they travel through the region more regularly than Westerners.
The number of international tourists almost doubled from 527 million in 1995 to 1.14 billion in 2014, the report said.
“Despite 20 years of efforts, the sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism has expanded across the globe and out-paced every attempt to respond at the international and national level,” it added.
Opportunities for travellers to abuse women and children have “soared” in the past two decades, the Global Study on Sexual Exploitation of Children in Travel and Tourism said.
The report, which is considered the most comprehensive ever compiled on the sex tourism industry, also identifies countries which have emerged as new destinations for abusers.
These include Portugal, Moldova and the Ukraine in Europe, and also Burma, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia in Southeast Asia.
The report also said sex tourists are no longer being seen as wealthy, middle aged Westerners who travel to underdeveloped countries to seek children to abuse.
The UN-backed study says abusers are also often not tourists, but could be business travellers or expatriates who are ‘situational’ offenders, rather than paedophiles.
The study says the growth in opportunities for the abuse of children and women is directly linked to the boom in travel and the wider use of the Internet.
“The vulnerability of children has increased dramatically in the past 20 years as travel, tourism soared,” the report said.
“Although the precise scope is not yet measurable, there are alarming indicators that this crime is persistent and widespread.
“The Global Study has also demonstrated, undeniably, that the increasing use of the Internet has enabled offenders to groom children online, exchange information and advice on how to abuse children and avoid detection, and in some cases ‘book’ children in advance.”
The report, which was released by global child protection network ECPAT, charts the increase in sex tourism over the last two decades.
It was compiled with information from more than 70 global child protection agencies.
“Twenty years ago the offender was seen as a white, wealthy, middle-aged male peadophile from a developed country vacationing in a developing country with the intention of having sex with a child,” it adds.
“Now we understand that more children are being abused by tourists and travellers from their own country or region than by people who have travelled from other parts of the world.”
The report notes, for example, that Japanese, Chinese and South Korean tourists are now more likely to be offenders in Southeast Asia – a traditional sex tourism hotspot – because they travel through the region more regularly than Westerners.
The number of international tourists almost doubled from 527 million in 1995 to 1.14 billion in 2014, the report said.
“Despite 20 years of efforts, the sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism has expanded across the globe and out-paced every attempt to respond at the international and national level,” it added.
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