Renowned human rights activist IA Rehman expressed his fear for the two brothers who had managed to escape from the chains of a landlord, from the outskirts of Lahore. “These children are now in a very insecure state,” he said. “Bonded labourers who finally get a voice and struggle to get free face some very threatening circumstances and receive almost no protection from anyone,” Rehman said.
According to information, bonded labour, also called debt bondage, is defined as a form of slavery by the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention 1957, and a form of forced labour under ILO Forced Labour Convention 1930. But still thousands of children in Pakistan remain under this form of slavery working all over Pakistan for landlords, mainly because their parents have been slaves too.
Rehman blames the government for not doing anything about this issue because it is not a priority for them, that they have a political clout and also because the police are given bribe money in order to not file FIRs. Children like these are often very insecure because first they do not have a home to turn to. Either they have been sold by their parents themselves, or they have acquired the status of a “slave” because of family, but these children once they run away become destitute and are targets for gangs and criminal networks that operate by kidnapping or luring away children for crimes, and human trafficking.
Technically FIRs should be filed against the children’s parents also in the case of children running away. “The state should make institutions for such children and make sure they are safe,” says Rehman. “In this case, the children should be sent after their medical procedures to a place like SOS Village where they are taught work, and they are given a good home to live in and become good citizens,” he said.
Iqbal Ahmed Detho, programme manager at the Society for Protection of the rights of the child (SPARC) says that police should act on its own discretion by raiding such places but in practical terms is not possible as the landlords have their own pressure to put on police. Legally although the crime of slavery is a cognisable offence which means police can act on its own without waiting to receive any orders from the magistrate.
“We will be contacting those children through our lawyer to provide them legal aid and try to contact their families,” says Detho. In all probability, the children were kept at a brick kiln in surrounding areas of Punjab. Advocate Atif Adnan, who usually deals with NGO Sahil’s cases of child abuse, says that first investigation must be done in order to see if the children have been abused, however seeing as the children were in chains, it was obvious that they were restrained from running away. “Most probably their parents will act as complainants if they want,” says Adnan.
“I am speaking practically, in many cases the landlord does not admit to abusing them physically instead he says that he was also helping them study and giving them food and shelter while they did some light work for him,” he says. Domestic child labour is not illegal in Pakistan and so they get away with it many times. Several times children are sold off by their parents but even then this is illegal. However the law does not see parents are offenders.
