bonded labours
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BONDED LABOURS:MODERN DAY SLAVERY
Bonded labour – or debt bondage – the least known form of slavery today, and yet it is the most
widely used method of enslaving people.
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· Dangerous workplaces
· Excessive working hours
· Subjection to psychological, verbal, physical and sexual abuse
· Obliged to work by circumstances or individuals,no pay.
· Work and life on the streets in bad conditions
· Inability to escape from the poverty cycle -- no access to education
Bonded labour • A person becomes a bonded labourer when his or her
labour is demanded as a means of repayment for a loan. The person is then tricked or trapped into working for very little or no pay, often for seven days a week. The value of their work is invariably greater than the original sum of money borrowed.
• The United Nations Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery estimated in 1999 that some 20 million people are held in bonded labour around the world.
• Bonded labour has existed for thousands of years. In South Asia it took root in the caste system and continues to flourish in feudal agricultural relationships. Bonded labour was also used as a method of colonial labour recruitment for plantations in Africa, the Caribbean and South East Asia.
• Bonded labourers are routinely threatened with and subjected to physical and sexual violence. They are kept under various forms of surveillance, in some cases by armed guards. There are very few cases where chains are actually used (although it does occur) but these constraints on the bonded labourers are every bit as real and as restricting.
• Poverty, and people prepared to exploit the desperation of others lies at the heart of bonded labour.
Article 21 of the Constitution of India guarantees the right to life and liberty. The practice of bonded labour violates all of these constitutionally-mandated rights. Article 23 of the Constitution prohibits the practice of debt bondage and other forms of slavery both modern and ancient. Traffic in human beings and begar and other similar forms of forced labour are prohibited and any contravention of this provision shall be an offence punishable in accordance with the law.
Article 24 prohibits the employment of children in factories, mines, and other hazardous occupations.
Together, Articles 23 and 24 are placed under the heading "Right against Exploitation," one of India's constitutionally-proclaimed fundamental rights.
INDIAN CONSTITUTION
Salient Features of the Act:
1) totally abolishes bonded labour
2) to identify and rehabilitate bonded labourer
3) identify certain scheme on committees to be formed at the district level
4) punishment of up to 3yrs imprisonment and/or fine
5) any attachment of property of bonded laborers stands cancelled form the date of enforcement of the act
6) employers not to evict the bonded labourer from the accommodation provided
BONDED LABOUR SYSTEM (ABOLITION) ACT,1976
HEART-WRENCHING STORIES OF BONDED LABOURS ….
Case study :1
Jeyanthi Vs. Sri Lakshmi Modern Rice
Mills(Anantapur;Andra
Pradesh)
Facts of the Case:• After losing her husband to an illness , Jeyanthi was
forced to step in as the bread earner for her six young children.
• With no education, work was hard to come by for her, and existence was at bare subsistence levels.
• Jeyanthi got by, working as a casual labourer; and as her sons became older, they too pitched in.
• Life was to take a nastier turn for Jeyanthi when her eldest child was to get married. Even the most shoe-string wedding budget worked out to Rs 10,000, money that Jeyanthi didn't have.
• She also had no land or asset she could sell, anything of value she had was long gone
**Like many before her in her village, in Andhra Pradesh, Jeyanthi approached the owners of the Sri Lakshmi Modern Rice Mills for a loan and a job to
help pay it off.**
WORKING CONDITIONS: Jeyanthi was made to work long hours under
inhuman conditions. She couldn't go home, her wages were way below the
minimum wage rate. she had to put up with repeated sexual abuse by her
employers. Jeyanthi, whose pitiful plight is narrated by the
Bandhua 1947 campaign, run by 5 organisations working in this space, is bonded labour - forced or partly forced labour governed by a debtor-creditor agreement.
The reality:The current UPA government, celebrating its nine years in office, has been putting out a print ad that is headlined: "thanks to MGNREGA
(Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), no bonded labour anymore"......but statistics displays something else!
ROLE OF MODERN DAY SLAVERY HUB:
(Supported by humanity united)
Back in ANANTAPUR, facilitator Albina Gidh is helping to spread the word.
She has had to negotiate with community leaders(MILL OWNERS), the village panchayat (local governance body) and other influential people in the community to allow the listening and discussion process to take place.
People started endorsing the idea of listening to the programme together and discussing the issue.
Jeyanthi was the one of those victims who was rescued by this ngo out of this vicious circle of bondage when she failed to get any help from GOVERNMENT.
THE STRUGGLE & INITIATIVES:
• As it is difficult to reach current victims directly, the listener village helps community members to identify them, complementing local initiatives focused on rescue and rehabilitation.
• Stories of struggle and success are gathered by reporters from the local community trained in bonded labour awareness, community engagement and using recording equipment. A 30-minute radio programme titled 'Majboor Kisko Bola' (Who are you calling helpless?) is then produced in our New Delhi office, containing drama based on the stories gathered, along with expert interviews and folk music.
• Each episode also contains crucial information on government schemes and agencies that target bonded labour, on the Bonded Labour Abolition Act, safe migration, trafficking, methods of rescue, minimum wages, and how NGOs and the media can help.
• Dissemination is undertaken by community facilitators, who are identified as agents of change within their village by partner NGOs and are trained on group cohesion and conflict resolution, along with how to capture results coming from the activities. Facilitators organise their villages into groups to listen to each episode, engage in discussions afterwards, and act on the information they have heard. They ensure that at least half of households listen to each episode every week.
Case study :2 Jayantilal and company
zari unit in Bapunagar area. AHMEDABAD owned by Zia-Ul-Haque Shaikh
Complaint in December 2001 Facts of case :- A team of the state labour department raided a zari
unit and found children working there Six kids from Bihar as bonded labourers at a zari
unit Shiakh was booked under the of the Bonded Labour
System (Abolition) Act
Complaint against Shaikh : child labourers were confined inside Shaikh's
workplace and were made to do zari-work , the children were made to work without fixed
working hours and were paid below the minimum wages.
Working conditions No proper visibility . No proper ventilation. Normal workday of 16 hours. Very low wage rate. Labour suffering from suffocation due to cloth dust. Suffering from eye problems and spinal disorder. No proper medical facilities available. Proper drinking water not available.
Court decision
Case filed by prosecution agency was week and no
strong evidence or witness and hence court gave decision in favour of
Shaikh
Reasons for failure of case in court
• some glaring loopholes in the case prepared by the prosecuting agency.
• The court acquitted Shaikh giving him a benefit of doubt.
• complainant officer was not authorized to lodge the complaint by the concerned higher authorities.
• No definite evidence was produced about the age and names of the child labourers
• No statement of the victims were recorded and placed before the court during the trial
• The presiding officer also criticized the prosecution on the ground that it did not specify the wage given.
• The prosecution could not even prove that the kids were working at the same zari unit.
Case Conclusion In India there are certain rules to
avoid child labour but are not implemented due to following
reasons:- Poverty and unemployment
Lack of awareness Lengthy court procedures
CASE study :3
Bandhua Mukti Morcha v/s Union of India
In Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India, the main issue concerned the existence of bonded labour in the Faridabad stone quarries near the city of Delhi.
It was alleged that majority of the workers were compelled to migrate from other states, and turned into bonded labourers. The workers were living in sub-human and miserable conditions.
A violation of various labour laws and the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1976 was alleged.
Facts Of The Case
LEGAL RULINGS:
The SC stated that before a bonded labour can be regarded as a bonded labourer, he must not only be forced to provide labour to the employer but he must have also received an advance or other economic consideration from the employer.
A public interest litigation was brought against the inhuman working conditions in the stone quarries in Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India and others. This was primarily brought as the various directions given by the Apex Court in the 1984 petition brought by the same appellants had not been implemented by the various state governments.
• It may be noted that in this case a letter addressed to this Court complaining about prevalence of bonded labour system in Cutton, Anagpur and Lakkaarpur areas in Haryana, was treated as a writ petition under Art. 32 of the Constitution.
• The Court held that what is necessary is provision of a permanent base for residence of the labourers, at or near the work site. This would necessitate reasonable housing, supply of water, a reasonable provision store at hand, schooling facility, facility of a hospital, recreational facilities and attention to the law and order problem. The court directed the State of Haryana to attend to the needs of the workmen in a well-considered and systematic way and to provide them with the facilities mentioned above.
Case study : 4
CHILD BONDED LABOUR :
INDIA’s HIDDEN SHAME
DELHI: (Story of Lakshmi) Rescued by:
BACHPAN BACHAO ANDOLAN
FACTS OF THE CASE:
• 13 years old Lakshmi was abducted four years ago from her village in North-east India.
• Until her rescue, she had been working in people's homes across West Delhi –
*cooking, *cleaning , *taking care of children *Other household chores.
WORKING CONDITIONS:**Frail and frightened Lakshmi describes her
nightmare to NGO people**
• She was not allowed to rest .• She could’nt go home.• For even small mistakes , she was been constantly hit by her
employers.• She was the victim of verbal abuse as well.• She was never allowed to leave the house, so she didn't
realise that she is in Delhi. Her employers told her that we are in Madras in South India."
• As the police and counsellors question her, Lakshmi breaks down. She tells the police that she was sexually assaulted by the men who kidnapped her.
• She was threatened that if she told anyone about it, they would tell everyone back home in her village and her honour would be destroyed.
• And then, when she started working the agent who arranged her work withheld all her wages leaving her with nothing.
GOVERNMENT HELPLESS:
(The government body in charge of children's rights admits they are helpless)
• "Unfortunately our child labour prohibition and regulation act is totally outdated," says Kushal Singh, head of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
• "It says children below the age of 14 cannot be employed in hazardous occupations. Does that mean in non-hazardous occupations a two-year-old child can be employed?
• "So obviously it's a very regressive act. This issue has been raised and now an amendment is pending in the parliament. However, it has been pending for a very long time.“
• If the law changes, it will make the fight against child exploitation a little easier.
• But that's no relief for families like these. Many here fear that their daughters may be lost forever
INITIATIVE BY BACHPAN BACHAO
ANDOLAN: (formed in 1980 by Kailash
Satyarthi, who was appalled by the plight of
child labourers)
• The work of BBA takes three strands, being prevention, protection and rehabilitation.
• Prevention is encouraged through community intervention. Public awareness campaigns and efforts to publicise the problems of child labour to consumers.
• The BBA's Child Friendly Village program (in Hindi, Bal Mitra Gram, or BMG), has been accepted as a best practice model for development and elimination of child labour and trafficking.
• Protection: Where possible, the Indian legislative provisions are used to restrain and eliminate the practices of child labour and trafficking, and campaigns for tightening and developing the legislation are pursued. BBA works to recover fines from employers and traffickers and also to obtain monies owed to those whose labour has been used.
• Rehabilitation: BBA tries to ensure that rehabilitation remains the responsibility of the State (Govt.). Statutory rehabilitation is one of the key components of legal action. This includes a fine of 20,000 Rs. on the employer, in cases of child labour, a further compensation of Rs. 20,000 from the Govt., apart from other Govt. social welfare schemes.
Coz..in every 8 minutes a child is abducted as a bonded labour.
a) The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act was enacted in 1976. Twenty years later, Human Rights Watch has found that the goals of this law -to punish employers of bonded labour and to identify, release, and rehabilitate bonded labourers- have not been met.
b) The district-level vigilance committees, mandated by the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act and constituting the key to the enforcement of the act, have not been formed in most districts. Those that have formed tend to lie dormant.
c) Whether for lack of will or lack of support, India's district collectors have failed utterly to enforce the provisions of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act. The state of Tamil Nadu has an estimated one million bonded labourers.
CONCLUSION
1. The mandated rehabilitation of released workers is essential. Without adequate rehabilitation, those who are released will quickly fall again into bondage. Nonetheless, the central and state governments have jointly failed to implement the required rehabilitation procedures.
2. Finally, the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act directs vigilance committees and district collectors to institute savings and credit programs at the community level, so that the impoverished might have access to a small loan during financial emergencies.
3. The eradication of bonded child labor in India depends on the Indian government's commitment to two imperatives: enforcement of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, and the creation of meaningful alternatives for already-bonded laborers and those at risk of joining their ranks.
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