Daily Times

Bonded labour is the main form of forced or compelled labour. It is also attributed as the worst form of labour, trafficking, and modern slavery. In the bonded labour system, the employer/owner/landlord/trafficker/creditor gives some amount of money or other monetary benefits in the form of loan/debt/advance/push to a labourer/debtor and then exploits that labourer/debtor and his whole family in forced or compelled labour for generations.

Bonded Labour is a form of slavery where someone must work to pay off a debt/loan to the lender. The bonded labourers are normally given wages less than the official wage rate fixed by the Government. Moreover, they are further exploited by giving them half of the due wage by the employer/creditor and the rest is deducted from the loan given to them in advance or becomes payable in future by the employer/creditor. This situation makes bonded labourers unable to cover their household expenses so they often take additional debt from the employer/creditor to fulfil their basic needs such as food, shelter medical care etc.

Bonded labourers are often unable to pay off the full amount of the loan, so the employer/owner/landlord/trafficker/creditor charges interest on it. This creates a lifetime debt trap for bonded labourer and his whole family and ultimately transferred to the next generation of bonded labourer. This inter-generational debt trap makes children start working for employer/creditor, as soon as they are able to walk. Estimates suggest that more than 70 percent of bonded laborers in Pakistan are children.

The inter-generational debt trap makes children start working for employers/creditors, as soon as they are able to walk.

According to Global Slavery Index 2023 issued by Walk Free, Pakistan ranks 18th globally and 4th within Asia and the Pacific in terms of prevalence of modern slavery and approx. 2.349 million people are living in modern slavery in the country.

Bonded labour cases are reported from all provinces of Pakistan in which men, women and children become victims and it is exercised in many socio-economic sectors like brick kilns, agriculture, domestic work, fisheries, mining, hoteling, beggary, drug selling, commercial sexual exploitation, forced marriages, making of textile/bangle/carpet and other manufacturing units etc. The most prominent of these socio-economic sectors where bonded labour is highly prevalent are brick kiln, agriculture and domestic work. Seventy percent of bonded labourers in brick kiln and agriculture sectors are from minority communities especially Christians and Hindus and often become the target of sexual/physical/psychological abuse/violence and forced conversion.

There are almost 20,000 brick kilns in Pakistan, and over 4.5 million labourers work in this growing industry. On average, a labourer receives PKR 960 for producing 1,000 bricks, which is less than one rupee per brick. The labourers are usually paid half of this wage amount and the remaining become payable from the owner in future or deducted from the loan amount given to them in advance. In some kilns, where entire families are employed, kiln owners sell bonded laborers of a family to reconcile a family’s outstanding debt.

In agriculture sector, landlords/creditors exploit labourers in bonded labour in the agriculture sectors of wheat, cotton, and sugarcane etc. Landlords often do not provide labourers with access to their expenditure and earning receipts, so they control how much money labourers earn, the accrual of interest on their debts, and when they have to repay the debts. Landlords exploit widespread illiteracy among labourers and manipulate accounting records to continue the cycle of bonded labour.

Domestic work/labour is an informal sector of economy in which the highest number of bonded laborers are children amongst others. Every day cases of child domestic labour are reported in media, where children are trafficked in forced labour and are often subjected to physical/sexual/psychological abuse and neglect. Traffickers buy, sell, rent, and kidnap children for forced servitude in domestic work, and other

business enterprises. Statistics reveal that there are 8.5 million domestic workers in Pakistan, including many children.

Many employers, feudal landlords and brick kiln owners, who employ bonded laborers, are government officials or use their affiliation with political parties to protect their involvement in bonded labour. Some landlords use armed guards to restrict bonded laborers’ movements, and others buy and sell labourers among one another to settle their debts.

Government of Pakistan has made much efforts in the form of policy framework and legislation to control the bonded labour in Pakistan. The main legislation to regulate the bonded labour in Pakistan are Bonded Labour System Abolition Acts, Prohibition of Employment of Children Acts, Domestic Workers Acts, Shops and Establishments Acts, The Punjab Prohibition of Child Labour at Brick Kiln Act, 2016, The Mines Act 1923, The Factories Act 1934, Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act 2018 and its Rules 2020, The Constitution of Pakistan 1973 and PPC 1860.

The problem with above mentioned general/special laws is that there is inconsistency on the definition of bonded/forced labourer pertaining to the age, exploitation and awarding of severity of punishment to perpetrators under these laws. The provisions of these laws overlap with each other or more than one law applies in case of forced/bonded labour situation. This creates a conflicting situation for law enforcement agencies as to which law should be applied in bonded labour case, because a labourer concurrently qualifies as victim and not victim of bonded labour under the above laws. This issue needs to be addressed by consolidating all relevant general/special laws on bonded/forced labour into one complete law in the country and capacity of law enforcement personnel need to build on it, so that perpetrators could be effectively punished and bonded labourers are treated as victims irrespective of their age.

Under the provincial Bonded Labour System Abolition Acts, Punjab, Sindh and ICT have notified ‘District Vigilance Committees’ to monitor/review the situation of bonded labour in Pakistan, to provide assistance/rehabilitation services to bonded labourers and for effective implementation of the law. Similarly, govt. has also notified national, provincial and district level TIP Committees to combat forced/bonded labour with mutual coordination and for effective implementation of PTIP Act 2018. Unfortunately, these Committees are inactive to perform their operations. It is therefore suggested that appropriate resources in the form of staff, funding equipment etc. must be provided to these Committees so that bonded labour could be eliminated from Pakistan.

The writer is an Advocate High Court & Human Rights Activist. He can be reached at adv.wajahat.ali@gmail.com and tweets @Adv_WajahatAli