Two years ago Yousuf Sadiq, then eight years old, and his brother Suleman, 7, were sold by their father for the sporting fun of a wealthy Gulf sheik. An agent who scours the poor villages and nomad camps of southern Pakistan bought the diminutive brothers to race camels in the United Arab Emirates. They fit the agents' ideal: aged between five and eight and weighing less than 17 kilos apiece.

Smuggled on false documents to Dubai from Karachi airport, the brothers were put on a regimen of white beans, and beaten regularly. They joined many other boys: the camel jockeys are kept in desert houses in groups of 20. Barefoot and sleeping together on mattresses on the floor, they exercised and grazed the camels 18 hours a day. During races, falls are frequent and the boys are often injured or even trampled to death. Yousuf, who has racing scars on his hands, ankles and chin, describes the routine: "The sheiks would drive along with the camels and give us instructions: 'Beat, beat, beat. You are slow. Beat, beat. Otherwise I will beat you.' And we used to beat [the camels] severely."

The Pakistani government has tried to clamp down on the trafficking. In 2000, authorities stopped 74 children en route to Dubai. But families willingly go along. The going rate—$500-$1,000 a child plus $120 a month for the two to three years a boy usually races—can propel a family out of poverty in a country where the average annual income is $470.

Yousuf and Suleman were rescued after 16 months. When their father abandoned the family, their mother was free to protest their sale to Pakistani officials. Although joyous at the boys' return, the family, which had received a total of $240 for their labors, remains too poor to give the children an education, their one hope for a better future. Says their grandfather: "They will become laborers like me and their father."

In the face of few options, the sad trade continues. Every six months or so, according to Karachi airport immigration officer Haji Abdul Razzak, the broken and twisted body of a child jockey arrives back from the Gulf. Haji can't act without a complaint from a relative, and the $25,000 that accompanies a corpse buys many a family's silence. "They take the money and bury their child," says the official. Child smuggler Mohammed Aslam, 26, who was arrested in Karachi last spring, puts it this way: "We get money, the parents get money, the children get money. When everybody gets money, why be sorry?"

Reported by Ghulam Hasnain/Karachi