An antithesis of human trafficking: How a Pakistani YouTuber and Bangladeshi ‘Deshe Fera’ group reunite families across borders

On 15 January, Khadija Begum, an elderly woman in Karachi virtually met her biological daughter Minu and her grandson Osman (not his real name) in Bangladesh. 

As soon as the call connected, Minu cried out, "Ammu! Ammu!" while Khadija responded, "Ma! Ma!" a heartfelt exchange after nearly 40 years apart.   

Khadija's wrinkles were pronounced, and she spoke in Urdu and Bangla. Her brows bent in an inverted V, and she wept. 

Apart from Khadija and her family in Bangladesh, others also attended the Google Meet video call. One was Monzur Ahmed, the key contact person in Bangladesh responsible for this family reunion. He moderated the meeting. 

Among the attendees was the man who had come across a Facebook post on the Deshe Fera page—where Monzur serves as the chief coordinator and immediately recognised Khadija as his former neighbour from his childhood village.

During the call, he shared his memories of Khadija, recalling how she had gone missing as a young woman and was never seen again. At the time, Minu was just a toddler. 

Minu could not recognise her mother. "But I remember her from photos my maternal aunts showed me," she said on the call. 

Amid all the back and forth, Monzur asks if the family in Bangladesh recognises Khadija. Osman, a tailor by profession, gently asks, "Are you okay there?" Then, with a mix of emotion and disbelief, he adds, "I am your grandson."

As the men speak and Minu lingers in the background, Khadija seems lost in the moment. She doesn't dwell on how this call came to be, whether she can visit Bangladesh, or even where her next meal will come from. None of it matters; she is simply overwhelmed with joy at seeing Minu again.  

On the call, on Pakistan's side, Khadija, who is in her 60s now,  cannot work a smartphone. She was with a man in an open yard who helped her. Monzur cut the language barrier by speaking both Bangla and Urdu. 

Khadija's story is one of nearly 80 Bangladeshi families reunited through the collaboration between the Deshe Fera group (a 14-member team including Monzur) and Pakistani YouTuber and activist Waliullah Maroof to unite families. 

The details of how they wound up in Pakistan from Bangladesh decades ago remain unclear—except for the common denominator: they were trafficked. 

Waliullah Maroof

Waliullah Maroof.

The Karachi-based imam and YouTuber started his channel in 2018.

"I used to see a woman while growing up—everyone said she wasn't from here," Maroof shared with TBS in a Zoom call in January, speaking in Urdu. "She always claimed she was from Bangladesh, that she had been 'brought' here."

Not just this first case—later turned out to be a woman named Jaheda from Jenaidah, Bangladesh—but Maroof became more and more aware of these women, mostly elderly, who lead impoverished lives and claim to be not from here. 

"It was my mother who first said—You are always on your phone; why don't you make some good use of it?" Maroof explained. This urged him to speak with the person, film and record the story, and put it up on YouTube. 

Maroof's voluntary work is not limited to Bangladeshis. In nearly seven years, he has "through social media, helped reconnect over 180 families across Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Yemen, and Jordan, some after decades of separation." These families were "separated by human trafficking, migration, and geopolitical conflicts," reads his YouTube channel. 

In many of Maroof's YouTube videos, you can see a large number of people, mostly family members and neighbours, gathered in an open yard while the video call between Bangladesh and Pakistan takes place. This is filmed and later posted on the channel. In several videos, the emotions run high as this collaboration virtually reconnects long-lost loved ones. 

With a YouTube channel of 24,000 subscribers currently, Maroof's expenses to help these lost people not only reconnect but in many cases process the paperwork to travel to the respective country of origin are crowdfunded, he said. 

In December 2024, Hamida Banu made headlines: "A missing Indian woman found in Pakistan returns home," wrote the BBC. The reunion happened after both countries ran extensive background checks on Hamida, said the report. 

Maroof's video of Hamida on YouTube was shared by an Indian journalist on his platform. Eventually, it gained traction, and Hamida's grandson spotted her. Then it took 18 months for Hamida to return to India. 

"The Indian Embassy contacted me. They were so cooperative every step of the way. They reached out to me," said Maroof. 

Hamida reunited with her family after 22 years. She was trafficked to Hyderabad in Pakistan with a promise of a lucrative job in Dubai. She later married a street vendor, who died in the Covid pandemic. 

This pattern seemed consistent with the Bangladeshi women. Eventually, stuck in the country, they got married in Pakistan. 

"Some of the stories are incredibly gruesome and what these women experienced," explained Maroof, who opts to keep those details of violence perpetrated against them out of his YouTube content.  

The Bangladeshi volunteer group, Deshe Fera, has reunited nearly 80 families who were separated by trafficking using social media and grassroots efforts.

After Maroof started his YouTube channel, he connected with Monzur Ahmed, an imam from Bangladesh. By 2019, Monzur's volunteer group, Deshe Fera, had been working on this humanitarian mission to reunite lost individuals with their families.

As the channel gained traction, Maroof began receiving more requests. "In most cases, the woman herself or someone connected to her reaches out to me. They tell me that a Bangladeshi—or someone from another country—is living here. Can I help?" 

Maroof does his due diligence, and "it is not possible to take on every case. I will say, Bangladeshi cases outnumber those from India substantially," he added. After he made contact with the person, getting as many details as possible, he passed it on to Monzur and also posted video content on his channel. 

Monzur Ahmed.

Monzur, in turn, posts on the social media platforms of Deshe Fera. This social media network propelled by good samaritans across the country reunites families. Beyond social media posting, the team does much more. 

"The work is divided between members. We look at the Bangladesh National Information Broadcasting to find the address (given by the person in Pakistan who claims to have roots in Bangladesh); if the address is found, then great; otherwise, we reach out to upazila-specific Facebook groups, use Google Maps, etc.," explained Monzur.  

It's not easy. "For example, in one case, we were given an address in Pabna as the person's home and her maternal uncle's address in Dinajpur. It took us two years to finally locate her family in Bangladesh—they were actually in Sirajganj. Only then could we reconnect them," Monzur explained.

"With so much time passing, many victims misremember their addresses, making the search even more challenging," he added.  

"I know Monzur bhai. He contacted me about Amma," Rezina told TBS over the phone. Rezina's father has three wives. While her biological mother is the third wife (who she calls Ma), Rezina has vivid memories of Amma—the woman named Jaheda from Jenaidah—and Maroof's first case. 

"Before Amma was lost, she was sold in Bombay in the 1980s by an extended relative after my father and she were separated. She cannot recall any of it. She was unconscious when the travels happened. This is a story I know—my mother met her because Amma and Baba stayed in my maternal uncle's house for a while. Amma and Ma were close, actually," Rezina said. 

When Jaheda was allegedly sold but surely lost and never to be seen again, she left behind a 1-year-old son who was taken in by Rezina's mother. "So my boro bhai Dalim is the only sibling I am close with. And I am my mother's only child," Rezina said. 

Jaheda visited Bangladesh twice so far. "She is keeping well; we stay in touch," said Rezina. 

Rezina, interestingly, does not know Maroof. Her contact remains only Monzur. 

Other cases 

Maroof and Monzur both say these cases are all too common. "We get one or two new cases almost every week," Monzur shared.

One such case is Muniran, a woman in her 60s who was in Karachi for medical treatment. Speaking to TBS over a WhatsApp video call in February, she said, "I've found about 16 women—of different ages—who share similar life stories. They're from Bangladesh but now living in Pakistan."

Muniran first reached out to Maroof, which eventually led her to Monzur. Through this collaboration, she was also able to reconnect with her own relatives in Bangladesh.

The immigration officials and embassies have not been helpful when it comes to Bangladesh, according to Maroof. "It is not how Hamida's case worked out, mainly for the speedy cooperation process. It is extremely difficult to get the paperwork done. While everything is crowdfunded (Maroof also gifts smartphones to those he works with for easier communication), the process is taxing," he said. 

Hafiz Kabir, currently in his Bagherhat village living with his wife, explained his hardship over the phone. Hafiz went to Pakistan through India in the 1980s looking for a better life, to earn a decent income, but fell victim to bad actors, he alleged.  

"I am back now (through Maroof and Mozur's efforts) with no money. I swear I never remarried. I wanted to see my wife before this life ended. My children here work meagre jobs in other districts. I am back for good," Hafiz, likely in his 80s now and recently had an accident, told TBS. 

In the January video call where Khadija was virtually reunited with her family in Bangladesh, at one point, Monzur asked Khadija's family if anyone had asked them for money, and they replied no. Monzur continued to say, "We strive to be transparent; please know that no one is supposed to ask for money from you. All this is done voluntarily." 

Monzur then tells the family that Khadija's circumstances are dire. She is often compelled to beg on the streets to get by. Osman, the grandson, asks his mother on the call, "Do you want to bring her (Khadija) or also her son?" 

"These can be discussed later," Monzur remarks, because the process is anything but easy to reunite or bring back those, even for a visit, who had been taken decades ago. 

Khadija's case is still ongoing. 

TBS' Alhan Arsal contributed to this story, and Rizwana Hashmi interpreted the Zoom video call between Waliullah Maroof (who speaks only in Urdu) and TBS.