Daily Times

Sir: Bonded labor is a special type of forced labour — it exists only in Asian and agricultural societies. According to ILO, forced labour is any type of work or kind of service in which someone engages involuntarily and under some implied coerced threat of a penalty or oppressive measure. This type of labour mostly crops up in cases where monetary deals occur such as loans, which if the debtor is unable to pay; they have to serve the creditor for some specified term. Bonded labour has been outlawed in Pakistan and most other affected countries in line with the 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 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 introduce with the avowed purpose of abolishing the bonded labour system and 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 landlords maintaining bonded labour. Moreover, the law should recognise brick kiln workers as workers with rights and as citizens 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 have cannot the requirement of admission documents, and when they grow up, they cannot get identity cards because, to get one, they need birth certificates, therefore, the cycle continues. It is necessary and a responsibility of government to take this matter seriously, also to take corrective measure to eradicate bonded labour from the country.

KIRAN FATIMA

Islamabad

Published in Daily Times, September 22^nd 2017.