South Asian Bonded Labour System: A Comparative Perspective on Institutional Arrangements

(DRAFT REPORT, NOT FOR CITATION WITHOUT THE PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR) B R GIRI 2004

Abstract Apart from signing and ratifying various United Nations and International Labour Organisation Conventions, South Asian governments have also introduced domestic laws banning bonded labour practices. However, a variety of labour arrangements from freedom to exploitation to outright bondage have remained the order of the day. Even the young children of bonded labourers are often used as collateral for loans taken by their parents or are still required to work for the same employers as their parents under exploitative sharecropping arrangements. This essay reviews the bonded labour situation in South Asia, and argues that an anti-bondage law in itself does little to solve bonded labour practice as long as sociocultural and economic-political opportunities remain unfavourable to the most vulnerable sections of the society.

Introduction Despite prohibition imposed by several international agreements, the practices of human servitude in the forms of child labour, bonded labour, servile marriage, human trafficking as well as the exploitation of domestic and migrant labour continues to exist (Bales 2004: 19-22). Among others, debt bondage or labour bondedness is believed to the least known and most widely used method of enslaving people worldwide. Bonded labour or debt bondage happens when people give themselves into slavery as security against a loan or when they inherit a debt from their relatives. In the mid-1990s, the UN Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery estimated that some 20 million people are still held in debt bondage around the world (ASI 2001, Upadhyaya 2004: 118). According to a recent study, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan have some 15 to 20 million bonded labourers out of about 27 million disposable people or contemporary slaves worldwide (Bales 2004: 8-10) In 1996, the Human Rights Watch claimed that nearly 40 million Indian people are bonded whereas the government of India identified only 280,340 in 1999. Likewise, Pakistani government reported that the total number of bonded workers between 5,000 and 7,000 but according to the Bonded Labour Liberation Front of Pakistan, there are some 20 million of them. In 1995, the government of Nepal announced statistics concerning kamaiya practice, which recorded 15,152 bonded families consisting of 83,375 individuals in the five (out of 75) western Tarai (or flat-plain) districts of Banke, Bardiya, Dang, Kailali and Kanchanpur. However, NGOs claim the numbers to be more than 40,000 families with some 200,000 individuals (CWIN 2003). Moreover, Nepal is alleged to have a further two million landless agricultural workers, who are at risk of falling into bonded labour (Robertson and Mishra 1997). As elaborated later, these statistics can under or over estimate the extent of bonded labour problem as it depends, for instance, on the methods of obtaining them. Thus, a researcher should be wary about taking child labour figures at face value. Even having said this, it is still useful to refer to the numbers as an indication of the problem because several million South Asian people, including children and women, are working in slave-like conditions, often not knowing when their little known debt will finally be considered paid or inherited by the following generations. South Asia normally refers to South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries comprising of Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, but Afghanistan is also included by researchers. This essay primarily focuses on Bangladesh, India and Nepal Pakistan, where 15 to 20 million bonded labourers

reported to be found. Most reports regarding bonded system in South Asia have been carried out by journalists and various NGO activists, and their focus is largely on the exposition and denouncement of specific human rights violations (Bales 2004: 265). For pro-active NGOs, the practice of bonded labour is an inhuman modus operandi whereby adults and children work for the landlords in conditions of servitude to pay off an individual or family debt. It is, they claim, nothing other than a residue of the medieval slavery system, an intolerable characteristic and a major infringement of the [South Asias] labour market (Jha 1999: 33-34). It is argued that bonded labour in India, Nepal and Pakistan is localised within the caste hierarchy or similar forms of social stratification in spite of existing several domestic laws that prohibit all types of slave-like practices. As such, the system of bondage remains clandestine in nature, creating a considerable controversy regarding the number of people who are actually enslaved. The unenforceability of national laws and lack of public awareness, combined with peoples appalling level of poverty and daily-life vulnerabilities are blamed for holding people in bondage. It needs to be made clear that human rights organisations and NGO activists use the term slavery or modern-day-slaves, but South Asian governments and United Nations refer to it as debt bondage or bonded labour. The formers view is based on the fact that people submit themselves in for loan, which is the first stage in a pattern of abuse that falls under the definition of slavery in the International Slavery Convention of 1926 and the Supplementary Convention of 1956, but the latter argue that is feudal form of labour resulted party from social exclusion but mostly from labour market imperfection, and therefore not akin to slavery. This essay uses terms like bonded labour, debt bondage, and bondedness in the same way as South Asian governments and the United Nations do. This essay starts with various definitions on bonded labour system, presents a working definition, geographic concentration of debt bondage, and national and international laws that prohibit peoples bondage. A conclusion is being reached after describing the recent efforts of South Asian governments and NGOs to free the indebted people, and the labour market situation in the region. A major contribution of the essay is that it focuses on South Asia where largest bulk of bonded labourers are said to exist, which is rarely heard and understood by people worldwide. At the same time, the issue of bondedness is a complex historical as much as sociocultural and economic political phenomenon, which this short account is unable to capture in details.

Bonded labour in South Asian context According to the 1930 ILO Convention (29), forced labour is a service for which the worker has not offered him/herself voluntarily, and that s/he has to perform under the threat of a penalty. Its 1956 Supplementary Convention Against Slavery (105) defines debt bondage as the combination of a credit and a labour contract in which the value of labour services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt (e.g. only interest is repaid by the labour but principle is never repaid) or if activities are neither defined nor limited (e.g. the labourer can be required to work at any time day or night) (Daru and Churchill undated: 1-2). The table below, presenting the national definition of bonded labour in respective South Asian countries, also has similar elements like that of ILO convention 1956.
Country India National laws Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1976 (amended in 1985) Bonded Labour Act 1992 Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Rules 1995 Kamaiya Labour (Prohibition) Act 2002 Definition of bonded labour Bonded labour is caused by a debt or by social customs and results in restriction of freedom of movement, and/or restriction of freedom to look for alternative employment, and/or reduction wages and/or product prices. Bonded labour includes those who forfeit the right to move freely from place to place; forfeit the freedom of employment or adopting other means of livelihood for a specified period or unspecified period. Kamaiya labour is caused by a debt and results in payment of low wages. It also includes abusive traditional forms of labour.

Pakistan Nepal

Source: Daru and Churchill (undated: 2), Ercelawn and Nauman (2001: 13) From the above table it seems clear that South Asias bonded labour system could be defined as a social agreement between a debtor and a creditor under which the former agrees to render labour or personal services to the latter without remuneration this agreement is in lieu of the repayment of the debt or part of debt or interest on principle amount for a specific period or till the debt is satisfied or repaid (Pandhe 1976: 1-2, Kamble 1982: 3-8). In other words, millions of people are in bonded situation primarily because they are impoverished and socio-politically marginalised for generations, and hence often fall prey to landlords, moneylenders, and recently to subcontractors of commercial farming for a pool of cheap labour. Historically religion, ethnicity and caste also differentiated the burdens of bonded labourers of South Asia. A general perception is that those belonging to the so-called scheduled castes, indigenous groups, and communities affected by human-made and natural disasters are most vulnerable to bonded labour. In the Sindh Province of Pakistan, for instance, the majority of haris (or indebted sharecroppers) are originally

from Kohl and Bhil communities of India, who migrated before two countries partition in 1947. Their lack of sociocultural and economic-political leverage has meant that the chiefly Hindu minority haris and recent converts to Christianity, have suffered worst from the bonded labour system, and probably followed by Muslims without tribal/clan connection (Ercelawn and Nauman 2001: 1; Lieten and Breman 2002: 340-41). Likewise, it is argued that the majority of the population in India and Nepal is composed of Hindu religion still maintaining elements of caste based social, political and economic order. Particularly in rural areas this often leads to some groups being excluded from mainstream economic and political affairs. For instance, dalits (occupational) and indigenous (tribal) communities of India and Nepal have historically faced discrimination against in terms of education, employment, and social relations. These people are instead assigned to specific community tasks such as sweeping, cleaning, tanning, ploughing, removal of animal and human waste etc. (ASI 2001). However, the tendency of human rights activists and NGOs to claim that bonded labour is thriving in South Asia because of its caste system is debatable. The caste factor does have some impact, but there are other fundamental factors, including the colonial styled extractive economy and imperfect labour market, that have accelerated bondedness of vulnerable people. A vast majority of bonded labourers are found in the agricultural sector, where they often spend a lifetime in exchange for food and a shelter for living. Within rural agricultural sector, begars in India, kamaiyas and haliyas in Nepal, and haris in Pakistan are extracted by local landlords and moneylenders for generations. In the case of Nepal, the active government policy to extract land tax particularly from its western Tarai (flat area bordering India) eventually rendered a large number of ethnic Tharu people (1,533,879 or 6.75% of total population) landless. The main benefactors were the tax collectors and migrants from hill and mountain regions, who could easily manipulate state apparatus to register land in their names. As a result, many landless labourers elders, women, and children have also ended up carrying out domestic errands and agricultural work at the landlords houses. Besides farming and domestic service, especially in India and Pakistan, bonded labour is widely prevalent slate and marble quarries, matches industry, brick-kilns, sugarcane industry, tea plantations etc. ILO has recently reported that bonded labour system is spreading to such sectors as fisheries and carpet making (Sarangi 2004: 6). Several authors argue that the issue of human trafficking cannot be ignored, including its worst forms in sexual exploitation of girls and women in bonded labour families (Ercelawn and Nauman 2001: 1).

The main geographic belts of so-called jitham and gothi bonded labourers in India are Haryana region of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, parts of Gujarat and Maharashtra, and Kerala state (HRW 2003: 22-24). In Pakistan, the haris and patheras (or brick-kiln workers) are found predominantly in Hyderabad, Multan, and Bahawalpur regions of Sindh and Punjab provinces (ILO 2005: 30-34). In Nepal, kamaiya labourers are concentrated in western Tarai districts of Banke, Bardiya, Dang, Kailali and Kanchanpur, and haliya in eastern districts like Sarlahi, Mahottari, Dhanusa, Siraha, Saptari etc. Some reports suggest that small pockets of bonded labourers may also be found in other (largely western) hill districts of Nepal. Hardy anything is known about the geographic concentration, if any, of Bangladeshi bonded labourers. Controversies with numbers As noted earlier and summarised in table 1, there are serious controversies regarding the exact number of bonded labourers in South Asia. Statistics are always open to question, but it is even more so in the case of bonded labour because independent research is lacking. Whereas the government of Pakistan presents almost non-existent data on bonded labour, NGOs reports have alarmed that the country may have one of the highest debt bondage in the region. For instance, around 500,000 haris are believed to be found in Hyderabad in 2000. For the same year, Multan and Bahawalpur areas of Sindh province add over 200,000 persons to give a conservative total of more than 700,000 men, women, and children in bondage. The Asian Development Bank supported survey estimates Pakistans haris to be currently around 400,000 households in just four districts, but ActionAid estimates hari families to currently lie between 0.8 and 1.0 million in the Sindh province as a whole. Moreover, another report claims that of some 2,455 brick factories nationwide, more than 500,000 Pakistani people are bonded in brick-kilns of the Punjab province alone (Ercelawn and Nauman 2001: 6-7, ASI 2002). Given the evidence for the existence of one million bonded labourers in Tamil Nadu state alone, argues ASI (undated), the conservatively estimated data of NGOs reporting 10 million bonded labours in the Indian states of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Gujarat seems indisputable (cf. HRW 2003). The 2001 report of ASI maintains that the correct figure for the whole of India is more likely to be around 20 million against Indian governments claim of about 280,000 recognised bonded labourers. In Nepal, between 70,000 and 110,000 persons largely

from the ethnic Tharu community in five western districts are noted to be in debt bondage in 2000. Although successive governments of Nepal had claimed that debt bondage is confined to just over 18,000 families and that schemes addressing the problem have been put in place, they have now reluctantly acknowledged the NGOs figures that include a large number of people (up to 2 million) prone to becoming debt bondage. Besides the kamaiya labourers, there are around 300,000 permanent farm workers, mainly in southeastern Nepal, who are thought to be bonded (ILO-PRSP 2002: 15). Lack of academic studies has meant that the parties involved in bonded labour present various figures, as shown in table 1, to serve their own competing interests.
Countries India Nepal Pakistan Total NGOs figures 10 million 370,000 6.8 million 16,837,000 Official figures 280,411 83,375 7,000 370,786 Lowest figures 2 million 110,000 1.7 million 3,711,000 Bonded children 100,000 17,000 400,000 517,000 Rehabilitated* 231,000 70,000 n/a 301,000

Table 1: N/a means data not available, Indian state of Tamil Nadu alone, only kamaiya families from the five mid-and far-western Nepali districts, only brick-kilns workers in Punjab province of Pakistan with women included, *reported to have been rehabilitated.

Source: ASI (2001, 2002), ILO (2001, 2002, 2005), Ercelawn and Nauman (2001), Oli (2003) Bangladeshi government has not taken any actions, and NGOs have also largely ignored about the bonded labour problem in the country. ILO has made claims that an estimated 2.5 million Bangladeshi children are found mostly in the informal working sector where they are often subjected to exploitative working conditions, as well as physical, social or emotional abuse (ASI undated, Daru and Churchill undated). Reports also suggest that thousands of South Asian migrants, within the country, between the countries, and abroad are working in bonded situations. For example, despite the fact that Sri Lanka is thought to be free of bonded labour, ASI (undated) acknowledges, there are roughly 170,000 Sri Lankan domestic servants in Lebanon, the majority of whom work in conditions similar to slavery. It further sensitises about a banner displayed in downtown Beirut that reads: Special offer for the shopping month. Instead of US$ 2,000 we can supply a Sri Lankan maid for US$ 1,111 (ibid.). This kind of statistical controversies that persists on South Asian bonded labourers makes the limited debt bondage policy initiative by the national governments and/or local and foreign NGOs difficult to find its focus. Rationale for debt bondage and underlying factors

In recent years, several reports have been written on South Asian bonded labour system but it is less clear how people become bonded. This section illustrates the basic premises that lead to peoples bondedness. In the past, say in pre-1950 Nepal, as feudal lords would basically own the workers, the credit link would not be required. However, transactions between employers and labourers developed with the gradual disappearance of feudalism and monetisation of economy (Daru and Churchill undated: 3). The authors argue that landlords motivations for choosing bonded labour contracts include a) more profit, b) ensuring the presence of labourers at a reduced price during the peak seasons, c) rent seeking behaviour (i.e. for absentee landlords), and d) maintaining a vote bank. In the initial phase of labour contract, from point A to B as the diagram below indicates, both sides can gain because landlords use debt element to guarantee labour availability during peak farming seasons while labourers are secured of their daily meals in off-seasons (ibid.). It is important to note here that contractual agreements to ensure off and in season employment are not bondedness because these could be unfair due to market imperfections.
Y = debt efficiency optimal efficiency

employers bargaining power on the basis of debt

new forms of coercion

X = debt

Source: Adapted from Daru and Churchill (undated: 4) The real bondedness begins beyond the point B. When transactions reaches beyond the point B, the employer no longer expects to recover the loan, while the labourer knows that he can never repay the debt. In such a situation, the use of debt to apply pressure to a labourer becomes less effective and an employer may resort to other types of coercion, including violence and restrictions on the freedom of movement (Daru and Churchill undated: 4). Therefore, unlike NGOs and human rights activists, a researcher should realistically take into account of the difference between families who would get a salary advance and are paid below market rate for a limited period (i.e. between point A to B) and those that suffer from severe exploitation, without any hope to escape (i.e. beyond point B). It is noted that as payment below minimum wage is a fact of life in many rural parts of South Asia, members of the community would generally even oppose strict punishment of employers in the relatively milder form of bondage (ibid. 5ff). As a vast majority bonded labourers are illiterate, falling

below point B means that landlords may often inflate the debt, charge interests rates at their will and penalise bonded workers for minor issues such as absence from work due to sickness. When things like this are added to the labourers debt, his children may have no hope of becoming free or wage based worker (Rankin 1999: 36-37, Kamble 1982: 136-37, Bales 2004: 202-03). In 1990s economic liberalisation associated with the structural adjustment programmes of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have provided further incentives for South Asian jamindars (landlords) to intensify commercial farming like cocoa, jute, rice or sugarcane for export. Since the price of primary commodities is generally low in the world market, agriculturalists increasingly rely on a competitive organisation of labour. Hence the use of bonded labour becomes perfectly normal thing, especially when governments are forced to cut back public spending and restrict labour rights. Linking local economy to world market has also meant that bonded labourers may well be exploited beyond caste or ethnicity (Bales 2004: 15). Some researchers argue that bonded labour system is neither an exclusively caste phenomenon nor an entity in which the rich take advantage of the poors, but they may even belong to the same caste or ethnicity. For instance, Rankin (1999: 44) reports about the kamaiya case in Nepal: The class convergence of ethnic Tharu and non-Tharu jamindar is more significant than the shared ethnic identity of Tharu kamaiya and Tharu jamindar albeit Tharu jamindars like to claim that they are better masters to their bonded workers than their non-Tharu counterparts (cf. Upadhyaya 2004: 126). In other words, the present economic structure is such that the criteria of bonded labour does not really concern colour, religion or tribe but focuses on weakness, gullibility and deprivation of people, making a direct relationship between labour bondage, wealth and abuse (Bales 2004: 11). Other studies further point out that the overwhelming reasons for a family to become bonded is poverty (i.e. lack of access to and control of their livelihood) and a high degree of vulnerability to risks. A number of factors quantitatively analysed by Murshed and Gates (2003: 1-22) and Daru and Churchill (undated 1-10), presented below, do seem to accelerate peoples susceptibility to debt bondage. Hierarchal social organisation: ASI reports argue that South Asias caste system has far-reaching attributes of Hinduism in terms of effects on societal relationships. That is because people are divided into four hierarchical social classes, which dictate their occupations and duties in society: Brahmin (priests or educated elites), Kshatriya (warriors), Vaishya

(merchants), and Shudra (low level workers, includes untouchables). Although these divisions started in ancient India, and that by now South Asia has undergone tremendous socio-political changes, the hierarchical social organisation still exists surprisingly including in the Muslim states of Bangladesh and Pakistan (ASI 2001, 2002). Other documents also suggest that the caste hierarchy can act as a breeding ground for debt bondage given the widespread poverty and unemployment rate, and moreover informal economy generating 90 percent of employment in both rural and urban South Asia (HD-SA 2003). Extractive state structure: Resulting from the long tradition of feudalism South Asian states have an extractive and predatory pattern of production set-up, especially the generalised tax farming is considered as one of the key factors making millions indebted. Like the colonial policy in British India, analysts argue, the governments have been accused of their tendency to depress the middle-class share of income in favour of a small group of elites, who in turn use their power like that of the state to coerce and extract rents from the vulnerable people (Murshed and Gates 2003: 8). In this way an exclusive club of elites is created, who have no stake in the long-term development of their country and is akin to a roving bandit, and not a stationary bandit with an encompassing interest in the land (ibid.). The authors further stress that all this has prevented the development of well-functioning institutions, especially related to property rights and the rule of law from taking root, essential for preventing vulnerable people falling into debt bondage (ibid.; see Prakash 1990).

Lack of means of livelihood: Academics, journalists and NGOs alike make the point that the peasant communities of South Asia possess next to nothing as asset, especially land. The poverty reduction strategies, even if they are in place recently, are failing to bring a visible economic change particularly in subsistent region. In the case of Nepal, longitudinal studies have found that even if the impoverished people are high on policies and projects agenda the pervasive structural determinants of their poverty, food insecurity and hardship have not been substantially shifted over the past thirty years (Blaikie et al. 2002: 1268, Seddon and Adhikari 2003: 32-50). This stagnation of development has provided fertile ground for debt bondage (Murshed and Gates 2003: 8). When it comes to land issue in Nepal, one should be cautious with authors who appear to overemphasise. For instance, Murshed and Gates (2003: 8) claim that a 10

relatively few families of high caste Bahun-Chhetri-Newar owning most of the productive lands, besides other sectors, while ethnic/tribal minorities are deprived of it, and the corrupt practices associated with land redistribution has created political crisis in the country. While it is true that widespread inequality is a stark reality in Nepal, claiming (lack of) land ownership is the key problem in the country is somewhat disputable. Large landholdings may be party true in the Tarai region, where over 100,000 ethic Tharu people are often cited as being enslaved by landlords, but what is the explanation for some two million people falling into bondedness in other parts of Nepal with hardly any large landholders? Thomas A. Marks, while discussing about the Maoist rebellion in Nepal, argues:
[] a big landlord in the hills, for instance, may be a man with two hectares of land; but objectively this does not fit the definition of such. The point is fundamental, for if the essence of the Nepals problems lies, as they do, in the population exceeding the carrying capacity of the land, no ideological restructuring can adequately address issues of livelihood. The result is bound to be, as it was in Cambodia, tragedy (Marks 2003: 32).

While generalisations are unsustainable, the problem of debt bondage is not simply having a piece of scarce land, but also about the lack of alternative means of livelihood, especially in terms of labour market opportunities. Unfettered power of employers: The key issue here is that the multiple social and political roles of landlord or moneylenders with their extensive networks in the community increases the vulnerability of poors to exploitation. For instance, it has been found in Pakistan that direct or indirect influence in locally elected bodies and/or in the law and order system (police, judiciary) allows landlords to prevent labourers from taking legal action. This situation does not differ much in other countries like India and Nepal. In fact, as noted elsewhere, landlords or employers are able to hide low wage levels by making an in-kind remuneration arrangement. In such case, bonded labourers remuneration package may include food, security, shelter, clothing, health or other essentials (Murshed and Gates 2003: 8). Although monetary benefits would allow workers to make basic life choices themselves, employers often prefer in-kind compensation because it promotes dependency and gives power to exercise threats instead of cutting wages (ibid.). This situation is made worse by the fact that South Asian societies characterised by poor governance and widespread corruption, especially amongst the elites. On top of that, the pressure from IMF and World Bank to cut down welfare spending has meant that they do not offer better access to 11

schooling, health care, and public sector jobs for the marginalised people. These are some key factors, though not exhaustive, that have kept millions of South Asians in bondage, and the governments have made little progress in freeing such people. The next section discusses various international and national institutional arrangements that prohibit bonded labour practice. International efforts on slavery and bonded labourers Various forms of bonded labour still exist around the world, but on the positive sides, there is an ongoing evolution in the understanding of debt bondage, and many international instruments aiming to eliminate slave-like practices have also continuously emerged. During the Vienna Congress in 1815, the Universal Abolition of Slave Trade was adopted. In 1926, the League of Nations gave an international definition to slavery as the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised. The Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) states that no one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. International Labour Organisation Convention (1930) concerning Force Labour (# 29) specifically prohibits debt bondage. Its Article 1 urges upon the member countries to undertake to suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms within the shortest possible period and Article 2 explains that forced or compulsory labour shall mean all work or service which is extracted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily (ILO website). The 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery brought into focus institutions and practices resembling slavery, which were not covered by the 1930 Convention, such as debt bondage, servile marriage, and the exploitation of children and adolescents. According to this Convention, debt bondage is the status or condition arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or of those of a person under his control as security for a debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined (Upadhyaya 2004: 118). The Article 8 (3) of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) also bans all forms of forced labour. The 1973 ILO Minimum Age Convention (138) was adopted with a view to achieving the total abolition of child labour. This Convention remains as the fundamental 12

international standard on child labour and has had a profound influence on national law and practice. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) recognises the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development. A further action in this direction by the ILO is marked by the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work in June 1998 at the 86th Session of the International Labour Conference. The Declaration insists on member countries to realise the principles concerning the fundamental rights, which include the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour. The unanimously adopted Article 182 of ILO Convention on Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999) focuses national and international priority on children in slavery, prostitution, pornography, illicit activities, and hazardous work. South Asian governments, including that of Bangladesh which is yet to recognise the existence of bonded labour, have ratified almost all of these international documents that prohibit bonded labour and slave-like practices. While Pakistan and Nepal signed international laws within the first few years of their inaugurations, Indian government, for instance, ratified ILO Convention 29 and 105 only in 1991 (Sarangi 2004: 4-7). After a brief description on existing domestic laws in South Asia, the (un)enforceability of international conventions and national laws shall be reflected. Domestic laws against bonded labour in South Asia India: As the first democratic country in South Asia India adopted comprehensive Constitution in 1950, and its Article 23 guarantees right against exploitation and prohibits forced (or bonded) labour. It states that traffic in human beings and begar and other forms of forced labour are prohibited and any contravention of this provision shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law (ASI 2001). In the years that followed a few attempts were made at the provincial level to contain bonded form of exploitation, like the Rajasthan Sagri Abolition Act (1961) and the Kerala Bonded Labour System Abolition Act (1975). In 1976, the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act was enacted by directly tracing the origin of the law to Article 23 (1) of the Constitution, which prohibits begar and other similar forms of forced labour still widespread in different parts of India. The Act argues that bonded or forced labour constitute an infringement of basic human rights and destruction of the dignity of human labour (HRW 2003: 16-18). Likewise, the Section 2 (g) of the 1985

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Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Amendment Act includes that any system of forced or partly forced labour under which any workman of the Contract Labour Act 1970 or an Inter-State Migrant Workman Act (1979) is required to render labour is under bonded labour system (Sarangi 2004: 41). Moreover, the 1989 Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act also forbids the use of both forced and bonded labour (ASI 2001). Nepal: In 1962, king Mahendra introduced Muluki Ain (or Civil Code), which categorically brands all forms of slavery including the kamaiya system as illegal. After the restoration of multiparty politics in 1990, Nepal introduced its first comprehensive Constitution, and its Article 20 (1) states that traffic in human beings, slavery, serfdom or forced labour is prohibited and any contravention of this provision shall be punishable by law (Jha 1999: 74). Although the Constitution does not state an Article that clearly applies to those who keep kamaiyas, it does prompt a strong action to discourage the practice of kamaiya system. In 1992, the Nepali government enacted Childrens Act (amended in 1999) and Labour Act (amended in 1998), which make, among others, the employment of children below the age of 14 years a penal offence (Bajracharya 1999: 66, Karki 2000: 41-45). Nepal entered into the third millennium by introducing the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act in June 2000, which reconfirms the previous laws by defining children as 16 years old and younger, who are allowed to work a maximum of six hours a day or 36 hours a week between 6 am to 6 pm (Karki 2000: 48). In July 2000, the Nepali government introduced a landmark decision against bonded labour: The act of working and making one work as kamaiya on the basis of any written or verbal bond or against the existing law will, hereafter, be punishable and that any such deeds signed for this purpose with any kamaiya labourer or any member of his family will be regarded null and void from today; those keeping kamaiyas shall be jailed for up to ten years (Rising Nepal 18.07.2000, Oli 2003: 3). Finally, the long awaited Kamaiya Labour (Prohibition) Act came into effect in February 2002, which outlaws keeping or employing any person as a kamaiya and cancels any unpaid loans or bonds between creditors and kamaiya labourers. Pakistan: The Constitution of Pakistan prohibits all forms of bonded labour and traffic in human beings. The Article 11 (1) states that slavery is non-existent and forbidden and no law shall permit or facilitate its introduction into Pakistan in any form, and the

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Sub-clause (2) further declares all forms of forced labour and traffic in human being are prohibited. The law relating to bonded labour, namely the 1992 Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act was promulgated as a consequence to a historic decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which took notice of incidence of bonded labour practices in brick kilns in 1988 and extinguished the outstanding advances (peshgis) in the name of the bonded workers (Ercelawn and Nauman 2001: 3). Thus, the Act abolishes the debt bondage and forced labour in all forms regardless of age, sex, race, colour, and religion. It sets all bonded labourers free and extinguishes all bonded debts. The Act also made the commission of the offence of bonded labour punishable with imprisonment for a term of two to five years or with a fine not less than of 50,000 Pakistani rupees or with both (ibid.). In addition, the provisions framed under the 1995 Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Rules provide the mechanism and procedural details to meet the objectives of the 1992 Act. The Rules also contain guideline for establishment of the fund for the rehabilitation and welfare of the freed bonded labourers (ibid.). Enforcement of national and international laws in South Asia With the ratification of several international documents, the governments of South Asia, especially the smaller states like Nepal and Bangladesh that remain quite sensitive to outside pressure, given their economic isolation and/or aid dependence, have enhanced their international reputation by building a positive image while hiding unpleasant domestic scenes (Blanchet 1996: 228). It has been clear from the fact that the approvals hardly stemmed from intensive internal public pressures nor precede from democratic discussions (ibid.). In addition, most of the political leaders and legislators have vested interests in private property as it is difficult to get winning votes without spending enough on election campaign - it is possible only if one owns assets (Kamble 1982: 139). The competition among political parties is often about who controls the parliament rather than a genuine interest in improving the lives of impoverished majority. As noted earlier, while South Asia has the highest concentration of mass poverty in the world (522 million, ILO 2005: 31), corruption continues to pervade every aspect of economic and political life. This is also illustrated by the fact that all the countries in the region are affected by ethnopolitical or sectarian violence. Moreover, it is argued that enforcement and effective application of international laws is observed to be negligence resulting from ambiguous and inadequate procedures, jurisdictions and penalties (ASI 2001). It is widely recognised that local realities cannot be captured in universal legislation of ILO, UN and the like, but domestic laws in South Asia are also criticised for being

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rife with vague, inadequate and inconsistent language, which compounds the problem of non-enforcement (Baker and Hinton 2001: 177). For instance, the Kamaiya Act of Nepal has been blamed as incomplete because it does not have any specific provision for checking bonded and forced labour in forms other than kamaiya (e.g. haliya practice falls outside of this law). Likewise, the Act prohibits keeping kamaiya and becoming a kamaiya, but it has not made any rules for rehabilitating the freed kamaiyas and making them self-reliant (cf. Oli 2003: 10). Likewise, the passage of the Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act of Pakistan is a first step in providing legal relief to bonded labour, but it has not gone far due to failed active enforcement of the law. It is further contested that the Act envisaged a proactive local administration through district Vigilance Committees in 1999 largely consisting of officials, which is thus far limited to only in a few districts. In fact, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has rejected these Committees as they included the very group of persons against whom action was to be taken (Ercelawn and Nauman 2001: 13). It is also reported that Pakistans Tenancy Act and Bonded Labour Act are at odds with each other. For example, the Sindh Tenancy Act states that a tenant, if he be indebted to the landlord, shall be liable to pay off his debt before leaving whereas the Bonded Labour Act eliminates all bonded labour debt and bondage, and directs disputed debt claims to civil courts (ibid.; see Lieten and Breman 2002 for details). In India, too, administrative mechanisms against bonded labour practice exist throughout the country in the form of Vigilance Committees, but lack of a political will to take a firm position on debt bondage at national and state levels means that these Committees exist largely on paper (ASI 2001). Unfortunately, hardy anything is written about Bangladesh. Prospect for South Asian bonded labourers In spite of being parties to international conventions against bonded labour, and also promulgating several local laws, human rights group and NGOs argue, South Asian governments have failed to show their political commitment to resolve bondedness of millions of poor people. They further charge that promises of bureaucrats and party leaders to constitutionally, legally and internationally abolish bonded labour system and forced labour practices in all economic activities have simply remained as a leap-service. In all countries under study, as it appears, the bonded labourers themselves gradually started their liberation movements (cf. Fujikura 2001). Most notable early examples were the Vidyullata and Vivek Pandit from Maharashtra, and Swami Agnivesh of Delhi with his Bandhua Mukti Morcha (or Bonded Labour Liberation Front), who spearheaded protests against the practice of debt bondage.

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In Pakistan, the Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF) won its legal battle against the jamadari (or landlordism) system in 1988. The core point in the judgement announced by the Pakistani Supreme Court in March 1989 cancelled the outstanding advances (or peshgis) in the name of the bonded workers - though the BLLF recently claims to have freed some 820 persons across Pakistan during 1999 alone (Ercelawn and Nauman 2001: 3). Only in the late 1990s, NGOs, INGOs, and human rights activists came together in a concerted effort to bring pressure on South Asian governments to acknowledge the widespread practice of bonded labour. Such a moral support of these forces was particularly useful in the case of Nepal. The Kamaiya Liberation Movement that intensified in May 2000, not only forced the Nepali government to declare emancipation of up to 100,000 bonded labourers in July of the same year, but also compelled them to initiate administrative mechanisms to rehabilitate the freed people. Since the beginning of 2000, with the financial support from various Western governments (especially Germany and the US) and INGOs, ILO has been the major body to work closely with South Asian governments for the welfare of bonded labourers. The Social Finance Unit of the South Asia Regional Branch of the ILO initiated a project called the Prevention of Family Indebtedness Through Micro-finance Schemes and Related Services (Sarangi 2004: 1). This time-bound program of ILO aims to a) develop the capabilities of governments and NGOs to shape and implement policies to rehabilitate of former bonded families, b) support agricultural workers' organisations, c) conduct community-based monitoring of minimum wages and other labour standards, and d) promote support for Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (1998) and the 1999 Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour through local advocacy networks. The joint efforts of South Asian governments and NGOs concerning bonded labour issue is summarised in the table below.
Countries Situation in 2000 No technical cooperation project on bonded labour Situation today Approval of first technical cooperation project on bonded labour by central government Invitation by Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka states committed to contribute 20 percent to the budgets of bonded labour projects National Action Plan Against Bonded Labour adopted Comprehensive rehabilitation plan drawn Kamaiya Act adopted Informal recognition of Kamaiya-like situations beyond the group identified. By 2004, 94% of freed Kamaiyas received some land

India

Pakistan

Nepal

Bonded labour sensitive topic Kamaiyas (or bonded labourers) freed on 17th of July without rehabilitation plans

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Bangladesh

Existence of bonded labour not recognised

Concept of indebtedness linked to labour exploitation accepted Recognition of the need to undertake research on the subject

Source: Daru and Churchill (undated: 10); ILO 2005 In terms of rehabilitating the freed kamaiya labourers, Nepal is supposed to represent one of the success stories in South Asia, but the reports are contradictory to one another. In 2001, ASI noted that in spite of the existence of available land, and pledges of substantial funds from ILO (among others) concrete assistance for rehabilitation has not been provided to communities of freed bonded labourers. ASI further argues that several thousands freed labourers were living precariously in plastic and cardboard camps and that approximately 3,000 kamaiya families remain in bondage unable, or unwilling to leave their landlords. On the other hand, ILO-IPEC briefed about its time-bound program claiming that despite constraints due to the continued insurgency in Nepal, the project has been able to make progress on several fronts, including provision of schooling for former kamaiya children, economic empowerment, skills training and income generation for adults, and awareness raising on kamaiya-related issues (ILO 2001). There are no easy solutions to long existing bonded labour practice, but the following ladder may add to the rehabilitation program often supported by ILO-IPEC and other NGOs.

Debt bondage intervention ladder

Prevention

Rehabilitation

Rescue/Release

Identification

Awareness Campaign

Source: Adapted from

Daru and Churchill (undated: 6)

The ladder shows that the South Asian policy makers, more than simply NGOs and media euphoria, first, need to internalise bonded labour as a societal disease that specifically distorts efficient functioning of labour market, and then create an enforceable legislative and legal environment. Second, the governments need to identify real bonded labourers and then to use the appropriate legal system to free

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them. It is emphasised that the position and attitude of the bonded labourers should be taken into account because release without the availability of livelihood alternatives may force many families deeper into destitution (Daru and Churchill undated: 5). Third, released labourers should be properly rehabilitated so that they can organise their own lives. Only recently, ILO-IPEC and other NGOs appeared to have recognised that education and participation of bonded labourers is inevitable. If they are unaware of their rights and duties even after their rescue form bondage, they may continue to face exclusion from access to essential resources and services in the community. It is in fact reported that legal provisions of India and Pakistan now include the necessity for the labourer to testify during legal procedures of release (ibid. 10). Fourth, the governments need to create such conditions in the labour and credit markets that completely prevent debt bondage (ibid. 6). For this, the governments also need to work together with the landlords and employers otherwise they may a) stop production, b) contract other (migrant) labourers in similar conditions, and c) replace labourers through mechanisation (ibid. 9). Even with this kind of all-inclusive approach it might still be difficult to find a durable solution against people who are prone to becoming bonded. That is because there are other more fundamental factors mentioned elsewhere that hamper policy implementation. South Asian labour market situation The above debt bondage intervention ladder is useful because doing nothing is never an option. However, there are several fundamental problems in South Asias labour market, which needs to be improved if any anti-debt bondage policies are to be effective. First of all, the average adult literacy rate in the region stands at 55 percent and female literacy rate 43 percent against a developing countries average of 75 and 65 percent respectively (HD-SA 2003). Lack of education means not only a deficiency in public awareness regarding bonded labour system, but also very limited chance of finding survival alternatives. Second, donor-driven (namely IMF and World Bank) economic reforms may have resulted growth in South Asia, but they failed miserably to cut poverty levels. It is argued that economic growth has not been linked with human development, especially lowering gender gaps in education, prioritising labour-intensive growth, protecting workers rights etc. Third, the rapidly increasing young people are unemployed as the governments have not made job creation as an explicit strategy of economic growth as well as poverty alleviation. The establishment of the WTO in 1995 was meant to make significant progress in three key sectors of agriculture, textiles and services, but lack of primary and secondary education and vocational training has hindered the prospect for job market (HD-SA 2003). In fact, South Asias employment grew an average of 1.5 percent in 1990-2001 as opposed to an average GDP growth rate of 5.5 percent for the same period (ibid.). Nepal has 11 19

million workforce, but less than 0.4 million (3.6 percent) are employed in the formal sector and those working in informal economy have no social security provisions. A recent ILO study argues that of about 300,000 Nepali annually entering the labour market barely 50,000 of them get a job (ILO-PRSP Nepal 2002: 2-5). Like in Nepal, a vast majority of South Asian labourers work for extremely low wages and in appalling working conditions even in domestic standard. So, if fundamental issues like education, employment or livelihood alternatives cannot be addressed, it seems next to impossible to completely free the millions of people in bondedness. Conclusion The problem of bonded labour is rather complex and even more so if one tries to find solutions. However, NGOs and human rights activists charge that if South Asian governments acted in accordance with the spirit of international conventions or national provision, the problem of bonded labour would have been eliminated a long ago, but they have failed to fulfil its international commitments (HRW 1996, ASI 2001). Analysts also claim that the Slavery Convention of 1926, which bans all forms of bondage, alone would have been enough to change the whole scenario of people in bondage. However, the successive governments in the region have signed law after law not because they are able to enforce them, but due to their national policies being influenced by international political developments. This dependency has meant the negligence of political commitment to overcome the issue of bonded labour. Particularly the skyrocketing global debt of 1970s forced poor countries to implement austerity measures (e.g. cuts in health and education spending) in order to sell their (primary) goods in world market and borrow money from the international banks such as IMF or World Bank. These policies designed to facilitate the debt repayment took available resources away from welfare spending. In the 1990s liberalisation of national economies forced landlords and other employers to rely on cheap labour, and bonded system was/is something that guarantees profit. This is probably why the legislations in South Asia have failed to reflect the dimensions of the problem as well as determination to deal with it. It took bonded labourers themselves to raise a hue and cry over the bonded system, and finally forced the governments to introduce various prohibitory laws. A genuine rehabilitation still remains an issue. Although there are many NGOs today placing euphoria on debt bondage, critics argue, their effectiveness remains limited as long as the rules remain externally imposed. It would be tempting suggest that the governments commitment, social awareness campaign, and a change of attitudes among employers toward bonded labourers (not just fearing for breaking the law) 20

would allow bonded labourers to live a normal life. These changes are made difficult by labour market imperfections and overall inequality in the South Asian societies. So far millions of people surviving in bondage have received a limited benefit from national and international legislations or rehabilitation programs.

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Microfinance and Related Services: Preliminary Lessons. International Labour Organisation, Social Finance Programme. pp.1-10. Ercelawn, Aly & Ali, Karamat. (2002). Bonded Labour in Pakistan: Impacts of Policy, Law and Economy. NIPA Karachi: The Journal. Vol. 7 (1): pp.25-35. Ercelawn, Aly & Nauman, Muhammad. (2001). Bonded labour in Pakistan: An overview. Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research. pp.+1-51. Fujikura, Tatsuro. (2001). Emancipation of Kamaiyas: Development, Social Movement, and Youth Activism in Post-Jana Andolan Nepal. Himalayan Research Bulletin Vol. 11 (1): pp.29-35. HD-SA or Human Development in South Asia. (2003). The Employment Challenge in South Asia. Kathmandu: UN Office. Online <http://www.undp.org.np/publications/reghdr2003/>. HRW. (2003). Small Change: Bonded Child Labour in Indias Silk Industry. Human Rights Watch. Vol. 15 (2, C): pp.1-86+. HRW. (1996). The Small Hands of Slavery: Bonded Child Labour in India. Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Project/Human Rights Watch/Asia Human Rights Watch. ISBN 156432172X. pp.1-111. ILO. (2005). A Global Alliance Against Forced Labour. Geneva: International Labour Organisation Office. pp. 1-87. ILO-PRSP Nepal. (2002). Decent Work For Poverty Reduction: An ILO Contribution to the PRSP [Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper] in Nepal. Kathmandu: International Labour Organisation Office. pp. +1-42. ILO-IPEC. (2001). Supporting the Time-Bound Programme in Nepal. International Labour Organisation Office. pp.+1-79. Kathmandu:

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