Author:
Publication: BBC News
Date: November 25, 2004
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4042207.stm
More than one hundred thousand people
in the southern Pakistan province of Sindh are tied to their employers
by "bonded labour" - 12 years after the country's government outlawed the
practice.
Under bonded labour, landlords -
or zamindars - tie their employees to them by debt.
Often the debt is many thousands
of rupees - much more than the workers actually borrow. Some workers are
taken against their will.
"I was kidnapped with several others,"
one woman, Shanti, told BBC World Service's Slavery Today programme.
"I was confined alone in a small
room. Then the landlord who kidnapped us raped me."
'No feeling'
The UN believes 20 million people
are enslaved worldwide, with the problem at its worst in South Asia.
Shanti said that she was kidnapped
by the same zamindar her family had worked for.
She also said she was two months
pregnant when kidnapped.
"The zamindar said when he kidnapped
me that if he kept me, then my relatives and other people would come back
to his land," she said.
"Then he raped me, saying that because
my family wasn't working his land anymore, he had a right to rape me."
Another woman, Laxmi, described
similar treatment by her zamindar.
"We were severely beaten, and worked
very hard by our landlord," she said.
"He had no feeling for human beings.
He beat us when we wanted to go somewhere, or even when we asked him for
food."
She said the zamindar had told her
she owed 100,000 rupees (around $1,700), and her husband the same amount.
"Whenever we asked him for money,
he used to beat us in reply," she said.
"We used to think that the entire
life of our children would pass, and this debt would still not be paid,"
she added.
Laxmi has now managed to escape
her bondage and lives with a group of other former bonded labourers.
Although they live in poverty, Laxmi
said that at least she was free.
"We definitely still feel hunger,
but at least here we don't have any torture," she said.
"Previously we were beaten day and
night."
Accumulating debt
Pakistan's government has set up
a fund of 100m rupees to rehabilitate workers like Laxmi.
But none of this money has yet been
spent. It is estimated five million labourers remain bonded to their employers
in Pakistan despite the practice being outlawed.
Ali Aslam of the Pakistan Institute
for Labour and Economic Research explained the process by which people
end up bonded.
Typically, workers in an industry
such as agriculture have to ask for an advance - essentially for subsistence
- as their employers will not pay them until after the harvest.
The advance is usually 5,000 rupees
($80-90).
"It's a very small amount, but the
next step is additional amounts, so the debt accumulates," Mr Aslam added.
"The third element of debt, which
particularly traps agriculture workers, is that they have to share inputs
with the landlords - seeds, pesticides and so on.
"So come harvest time, they will
have so little left by the time they have redeemed the first cycle of debt,
they need to borrow again."
For some people, the debt crisis
reaches such an extent they are forced to take drastic measures.
One man, Jafar, told Slavery Today
how he had sold one of his kidneys - and other members of his family have
done the same - in order to raise money to pay off the debt they owe their
employer.
Jafar said he was in "huge debt"
and owed around 150,000 rupees. He explained that the debt had increased
so rapidly because he had been the victim of duplicity by his landlord.
"We were sometimes drawing 2,000
rupees, and they were writing 5,000 down in the book," he said.
"We are uneducated, we don't know
what they have been writing. My parents are old, I wanted to pay off the
debts.
"I got 65,000 rupees[for the kidney],
almost $1,200."
No free will
Jafar said that selling kidneys
was a "usual practice" amongst bonded labourers now and was simply referred
to as "donation."
The operation has left him with
a 12-inch scar.
"It's nothing really bad, but I
can't work now," he said.
"If I do heavy stuff, I start feeling
pain."
Jafar said that after selling his
kidney his debt was almost paid off - but then his brother had married,
and had needed another loan of 30,000 rupees, making the total debt again
70,000 rupees.
"Five people are working and we
are getting 200 rupees a day," Jafar said.
"How can we manage the situation?"
However, one employer contended
that the system of bonded labour was a benevolent, paternalist system.
Kiln owner Choudhary Muhammad Assan
Nazeem said he regarded advances as ways to help his workers make ends
meet.
"Almost all of the labourers get
advances," he said.
"If the owners does not give them,
they will just run away. To keep them working there and to hold them, sometimes
it helps us if we have advances against them...
"They ask for advances - we never
tie them into advances. They're the ones who ask for money first - and
then they have to work."
