Sudan police launched a campaign against child trafficking in early February, a news report said.

The move seeks to stop young boys from being trafficked as camel jockeys to countries in the Gulf. Police recently stopped five men who possessed photographs of children, passports and other documents, the report from PANA (Pan-African News Agency) said. Sudan's Immigration Service has also started to check passports of people travelling to the Gulf in an effort to stop this practice.

Traffickers abduct or trick young boys from Sudan, other parts of Africa as well as from South Asia, promising good work and pay. But instead of providing an opportunity for them to leave the poverty in which they and their families live, they are enslaved as camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other Gulf States. They are forced to work in hazardous conditions, are not paid, and before a race, are deprived of food to make them as light as possible. Some children have been severely injured and even killed.

Under international law child trafficking is illegal. And according to UAE law and its Camel Racing Federation regulations, employing children as camel jockeys younger than 14 years old or lighter than 45 kilograms is illegal yet the practice openly continues.

Anti-Slavery International has been pressing the UAE to implement its law putting a stop to this abuse.