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Humanity at its worst
By Shehar Bano Khan
In a country where barbaric traditions of honour killings and vani prevail, existence of bonded labour is accepted as a cultural norm. Accountability at the official level for violating the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act remains almost negligible, and at the public level, awareness about its legality continues to be minimal, writes Shehar Bano Khan
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If there is consistency to be found in Pakistan it is in the determination of the state to violate international covenants and local laws. It seems laws are usually made here to become part of the legal system or, better still, to be breached with impunity. The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, enacted in 1992, is among the many forsaken acts upholding the tradition of making and breaking laws with impunity.
In a country where barbaric traditions of honour killings and vani prevail, existence of bonded labour is accepted as a cultural norm. Accountability at the official level for violating the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act remains almost negligible, and at the public level, awareness about its legality continues to be minimal.
Even those who are aware of this practice find nothing unusual about people bonded for life into working as slaves. “In my village in Jhang, these people are called patheras (brick kiln workers). They have been woring at brick kilns from one generation to another. We, at the village, don’t find their life unusual because they’re brought up like that. They have to work to pay off their father’s and sometimes grandfather’s debts. They are born into the pathera caste and can’t get out of it even if they wanted to,” explains Shaukat, a driver in Lahore.
People, like Shaukat, accepting the misery of bonded labour as a pattern of life carried on by one pathera generation to the next, show how customary practices ignore existing laws because they are too ingrained in our national psyche.
“There’s a breakdown of the administrative structure which is why the Bonded Labour Abolition Act is not implemented. At the district level officials are not sensitised to the law neither are the police aware that such a law even exists. In most cases, the police do nothing to help bonded labour because they know there’s no accountability and nobody’s going to penalize them for violating the law,” says Kamila Hyat, one of the directors of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in Lahore.
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Dealing with many cases in which bonded labour is forced to seek help of non-governmental organisations like the HRCP instead of turning to the police, Kamila Hyat believes that bonded labour is on the increase. “It is especially true in the case of domestic servants whose employers force them to work without paying them monthly salary. There are increased instances of domestic servants coming to us for help because their employers go as far as to accuse them of theft so that they keep on working till the amount is recovered,” states Hyat.
In its 24th session, the United Nations Economic and Social Council Commission on Human Rights equated bonded labour to slavery. ‘Bonded labour, or debt bondage’ as it is labelled at the international level, is a practice condemned by the United Nations as being ‘similar to slavery’ and consequently a violation of Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In rural Punjab human bonded labour can be found mostly at brick kilns and agriculture. But the situation is worse at brick kilns where entire families are pledged or bonded in return for loans to their parents or guardians.
Even death does not give them respite from bondage. Their misery into slavery continues with the burden of paying off the deceased’s loan getting automatically transferred to children or next of kin. The brick kiln owners’ strong connections with the local police make it impossible for a kiln worker to expect legal redress. Police complicity, along with the district officials’ apathy to the workers’ problems, becomes too powerful for a menial labourer to challenge.
“We have come across several instances where the police are unwilling to file an FIR against the kiln owner for forced labour. The writ petitions are usually filed through habeas corpus,” comments Wasim Muntizar, deputy coordinator of Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), an NGO working for bonded labour.
The recent research conducted by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) reveals the number of bonded labour at brick kilns to be touching the mark of more than a million in Pakistan. Punjab has approximately 5,000 brick kilns, the highest in country, while the remaining three provinces in all have around 1,000, claims a source at the Punjab Labour and Human Resources Department. Only 10 per cent of these kilns are registered with the government, the rest are free for exploitation in its worst form.
“We work for 10 to 12 hours and have to make 1,000 bricks each day. It’s not possible for a single person to do that so there are four of us usually working at a kiln for which the owner gives us Rs120 only, even though the government has set the minimum payment of Rs180 for 1,000 bricks. That leaves us with Rs30 each for the day. Now tell me, is it possible to survive in that amount? I can’t even protest as the kiln owner will kill me,” says Naimat, working at a brick kiln in Gujranwala.
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In another research study conducted in 2003 by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, commissioned by the ILO, it is stated that more than half a million children, women and men work at brick kilns. Children as young as 10 to 14 years help their parents in preparing bricks. They have no access to health, education and the basics required to live life as a normal human being. “Send my children to school? With Rs30 as my day’s earning? I have five children who often go hungry. How can I afford to send them to school?” asks Naimat.
Education is the least priority for kiln workers, their primary worry being the safety for their family. Media reports are filled with shocking details of how families of bonded labour are sexually harassed, raped and physically abused by kiln owners and their thugs.
In June 2005, 351 workers were released from the illegal custody of brick kiln owners on the orders of the Lahore High Court.
“We had learnt that children as young as seven, men and women had been detained at 16 brick kilns in Sheikhupura, Mandi Bahauddin and Lahore. They were held so that they would continue to work for the owner. We filed petitions at the LHC for their release. Bailiffs appointed by the court raided those places and recovered the workers,” recalls Wasim Muntizar, deputy coordinator of CLAAS.
The desperation to free themselves from persistent abuse has made these workers consider appalling measures such as sale of kidneys to pay off debts.
Idrees, 27, won freedom by selling his left kidney for Rs90,000. Working for the past 10 years at a brick kiln near Sheikhupura, he was able to pay off a debt of nearly Rs60,000 his parents owed to the kiln owner. Swapping freedom for the sale of organs has become lucrative business for middlemen, who are on the lookout for donors and unregulated private clinics where kidney transplants take place. Pakistan now ranks among the top 10 countries of the world in the sale of kidneys.
These people bonded for life are an insignificant lot for the government which has failed to enforce the Bonded Labour Act. Though setting up of vigilance committees at the district level is part of the law, so far not a single one has been established. As required by the law, vigilance committees should meet once a month under the chairmanship of the district officer to ensure ‘that the objectives of the law are fully achieved’. But the objectives have not been met and thus the law stands flouted.
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The government has tried to set its record straight by claiming that a fund of Rs100 million was created by General Musharraf to provide relief and rehabilitation to bonded labour, but the irony was that the fund was never utilised, at least not for the relief of bonded labour.
In a research report published by Piler, senior labour officials have admitted that “bonded labour is not their responsibility but that of the home department, i.e, police.” The same report states that district officials await written complaints from identified persons about non-compliance with official rates and other violations. Officials think that since a third of the kiln workers are unionized, they can take care of themselves.
If the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act was at all considered a priority with the government, then such statements by labour officials should have been taken seriously and vigilance committees should have been established and convened by the district nazim. And if at all we want to become part of the civilized world, horrifying measures like the sale of kidneys to secure freedom, should be eye-openers rather than an interesting read. In this era of enlightenment, freedom is not optional, it is the mandatory right of each individual.