ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) launched the country’s first hotline to register complaints against human trafficking in the country, state-run media said on Thursday, with a senior official saying it would ensure “prompt response” to complaints.

Pakistan has widened its crackdown on human traffickers since June this year after around 300 Pakistanis died when a rusty trawler sank near Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula.

Every year, thousands of young Pakistanis embark on perilous journeys attempting to enter Europe illegally in search of a better life. Human trafficking rings around the country exploit poor Pakistanis who are desperately in need of jobs, and lure them with promises of a better life in Europe.

“Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), for the first time in the country, on Thursday launched a national Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Hotline,” the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) said in a report.

It added that the initiative was funded by the Australian High Commission through the International Labour Organization (ILO).

At a ceremony held to launch the hotline, FIA Additional Director Shireen Malik Sher said this was the first initiative of its kind that would have a mechanism to ensure a “prompt response” to human trafficking complaints.

Sher explained how the hotline would work, adding that after a call was received on the hotline, the TIP official would send a complaint against the traffickers to concerned police stations across the country with a single click.

“And trafficking victims will be referred to the concerned departments for welfare,” the APP said.

FIA Director General Mohsin Hassan Butt described the hotline as a “pivotal moment” in the fight against trafficking in person crimes. 

He said the system represented an “evolutionary stride” toward a more coordinated, efficient, and harmonized approach to reporting cases across the country, the report added.