Fighting slavery

Bonded labour is a special type of forced labour, exists only in agricultural countries. This type of labour mostly crops up when a person’s financial situations are not entirely stable. For example, a person has a huge amount of loan to pay back so he offers his services to his creditor instead of paying the amount in cash. Bonded labour has been outlawed in Pakistan and most other affected countries in line with UN conventions on human rights. However, according to the 2014 Global Slavery Index, 2,058,200 people are enslaved in Pakistan. The WFF Index places Pakistan at third position in a list of 167 countries where the problem of human slavery is most severe. The provinces of Punjab and Sindh are hotspots of bonded labour, which is mainly found in the brick making, agriculture and carpet weaving industries, fisheries, stone brick crushing, shoe making and power looms. The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act of 1992 was introduced with the purpose of abolishing the bonded labour system, with the view of preventing the economic and physical exploitation of the labour class in the country and for the matters connected to it.

The problem in our country is that there are laws for everything, but there is no implementation of these laws, which leads to poor supremacy. This act should be applied and amended further to penalise land lords maintaining bonded labour. Moreover, brick kiln workers should be recognised by law as workers and as citizen of Pakistan. Many brick kiln workers do not have legal documents like identity cards and birth certificates. Without birth certificates, their children cannot go to schools because they do not have complete documents required for an admission. These children, once they reach the age of maturity, cannot get identity cards because; to get one, they need birth certificates. Therefore, the cycle continues. It is necessary that the government takes this matter seriously and takes corrective measures to eradicate bonded labour from the country.       

Kiran Fatima

Islamabad