ISLAMABAD – Despite having relevant laws against the bonded labour, their implementation still seems a distant dream because of the Law Ministry’s apathy. There are thousands of workers who face exploitation at the hands of those who subject them to forced and underpaid labour. Yasin, who is in his 40s and is a father of three, is one typical example of a bonded labour victim. Hailing from Faisalabad Yasin along with his family toiled for minimum or no wages for five years at a brick-kiln in Rawalpindi. For the first two years, he said, the bonded labourers at the kiln were given wages but then the owner stopped paying and made them work almost for 24 hours a day without a break.
Being lucky Yasin along with five other bonded labourers and their families managed to escape the kiln.”The labourers who tried to resist forced labour would be made to suffer as their wives and children would be locked in a room and brutally tortured,” said Yasin while requesting anonymity of his ’employer’. Yasin also shared his story with the representatives of an NGO, Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC).The forced labourers seems have been affecting generation of workers as Mian Khan, father of Yasin, died two years ago while undergoing the forced labour at the brick kiln where he contracted Hepatitis C.
Yasin a father of three, Liaquat 10, Nadeem 7 and Asma aged 4, said that he would be physically abused by the brick kiln. Some of the Yasin’s relatives still remain in the illegal detention of the brick kiln owner. Talking about the anti-bonded labour laws, Maheen, a SPARC representative said the Constitution of Pakistan in Article 11 forbade slavery and forced labour and a Supreme Court decision too declared such system as unconstitutional and the Parliament had also passed the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1992. But despite these laws the illegal practise goes on.
Bonded labour – no end in sight
