anti-caste

UNTOUCHABLE BOY HELD IN SLAVERY

Dalit boy rescued from bonded labour (The Hindu)

“A nine-year-old Dalit boy who allegedly suffered two years of physical abuse was rescued from the bondage at a village near Karaikudi on Sunday.

“Acting on specific information given by Evidence, a Madurai-based NGO, officials of the revenue department saved the boy from Indira Nagar in Karaikudi, after they raided a cattle shed at Silukkupatti, where he was made to work for 20 hours a day. [...]

“It has been alleged that Kaaleswaran, a caste Hindu from the same village, had got the thumb impression of the boy’s father, Anand, who repairs old utensils, on a blank paper when he was drunk. Kaaleswaran allegedly used the paper as a promissory note stating that Anand had borrowed a loan of Rs.60,000 from him. When Anand denied having taken a loan, the accused threatened to lodge a police complaint, and took his son into his custody.

“‘I was living in a shed, where nearly 200 goats were accommodated. They served me leftover food thrice a day and never paid any wages,’ the boy said. ‘Kaaleswaran used to abuse me every day,’ he added.

“It is said that several attempts taken by the boy’s parents to rescue him in the last two years proved futile as they too were physically and verbally abused every time they visited him. ‘We were scared that Kaaleswaran might kill our son, if we approached the police,’ said the boy’s mother, Meenambal.”

NEPAL: AFTER PROTESTS SPARKED BY A GIRL’S SUICIDE, GOVT PROMISES, ONCE AGAIN, TO PUT AN END TO CASTE-BASED DOMESTIC SLAVERY–DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH!

Nepal belatedly takes action on slavery following Srijana Chaudhary tragedy (The Guardian)

“When Gangu Chaudhary got a call to come to Kathmandu from his home in western Nepal, all he knew was that his 12-year-old daughter, Srijana, had fallen sick. He arrived at the family house where she had been working to be told that his daughter had doused herself in kerosene and then set herself alight, dying of her injuries shortly afterwards.

“Srijana was a ‘kamlari’, a domestic slave.

“As bonded labourers working off debts, Srijana’s family remains trapped in the quasi-feudal caste system still operating in parts of the country.

“Since the 1950s, young girls from Nepal’s Tharu community have been sold or given away by their families as a way of repaying debts to higher-caste families. Many face years of menial and unpaid domestic labour, violence and abuse. Chaudhary says that he was pressured by his landlord to hand over his daughter in exchange for some land. He never saw her again.

“But now, two months after her body was cremated, Srijana’s death could mark a turning point in Nepal’s battle to end this ancient form of slavery. Last week, the government pledged to end the enslavement of all remaining kamlari girls by the end of the month, help to rehabilitate them once free, and prosecute the families that had enslaved them.

“The government’s decision followed a wave of protests and strikes, in the capital and across southern Nepal, over continued discrimination against kamlaris. The unrest was prompted by the refusal of the police to investigate Srijana’s death, which was ruled suicide. [...]

“Officially, all forms of bonded labour, including the kamlari system, have been banned in Nepal since 2000.

“Yet campaigners believe that thousands of young girls like Srijana are still living as indentured slaves throughout the country.

“‘It is the powerful politicians from the upper castes who typically keep kamlaris, so they have no incentive to abolish the system,’ says Churna Chaudhary, the executive director of Backward Education Society, which has been campaigning for an end to all forms of bonded labour since 1985.”

See also on anti-caste:

NEPAL: IMPOVERISHED LOW-CASTE WOMEN THROWN INTO TRADITIONAL CASTE-BASED SERVITUDE (March 21, 2011)

and

CHILDREN AND CASTE-BASED BONDED LABOR IN NEPAL (February 26, 2011)

CASTE-BASED BONDED LABOR IN TAMIL NADU

Bonded workers rescued from farm (Times of India)

“Eight workers, including two children, belonging to three dalit families were rescued on Thursday from a farm near Arakkonam where they were said to be working as bonded labourers. [...]

“Officials said they saw signs of physical abuse on a few workers and all were under-nourished. [...]

“Twelve years ago, officials said, one of the workers borrowed Rs 30,000 [$540.00]for his daughter's marriage from the farm owner but couldn't repay it. Since then, he, his family and relatives have been bonded labourers. They were put in two tiny rooms without ventilation and forced to work 15-18 hours a day in fields. There were no basic amenities and they were each paid Rs 8 [14 cents] a day against the mandatory Rs 113.50 [$20] a day under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. They weren’t allowed to go outside the farm either.

“‘Last week, one worker, Chinna (33), was beaten by the farm owner and has been missing since then,’ said P Ramaswamy (58), one of those rescued.”

CASTE-BASED SLAVERY IS COMMONPLACE, NOT TREATED AS A CRIME

Cops ignore dalits in bondage (Express News Service)

“Police have failed to book perpetrators under the SC/ST atrocities law in the case of a Dalit family that was allegedly harassed and publicly beaten by caste Hindus in K Thattumal Village, Kumbakonam. In fact police helped the main accused get an anticipatory bail.

“K Rajamanikkam (39) and his wife Radha had worked as bonded labourers at a brick kiln owned by Thalaiparamasivam of Devanachery. Thalaiparamasivam had promised the couple Rs 15,000 for one year’s work. But, after a year, he refused to let them leave. Instead he claimed they owed him money [...], Rajamanikkam’s sister 44-year-old Vijaya said. [...He] demanded Rs 10,000 rupees to free them from his control.

“‘We borrowed Rs 10,000 and paid him. But in five days, he and his associates Murugan and Loganathan, came and beat us with logs. My brother sustained a head injury and my hand was broken,’ she said.

“‘When they approached the Swamimalai police station, the police recorded Vijaya’s statement, but obtained her signature without even reading out the statement to her,’ said A Kathir, Executive Director of Evidence, an NGO that works for Dalit rights. When the Evidence team examined the case, they found the police had invoked neither the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against the aggressors nor booked them under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act.

“According to Kathir, most Dalits and other people from the subaltern community worked as bonded labourers in the brick kilns owned by caste Hindus in Kumbakonam, but action had not been initiated by the police or district administration.

“Worse, Rajamanikkam moved from Thalaiparamasivam’s brick kiln only to end up a bonded labourer in another brick kiln.”

CHILDREN AND CASTE-BASED BONDED LABOR IN NEPAL

Most of Jajarkot Dalit children deprived of education (The Himalayan Times (Kathmandu))

“Based on the findings of a three-month study that it conducted in the district from December-end, the NGO Dalit Women Empowerment Forum states that roughly 60 per cent of the district’s Dalit children — 8,000 of 13,300 — are deprived of education.

“Children from poor Dalit families make the most of the illiterate children.

“According to Gita Sunar, the forum chairperson, most of these children are from landless families. They have been working as khaliya and haliya (farm labourers) to make a living. The report states that 468 Dalit families of the district have been working as haliya and 126 families have been working as khaliya.”

See also:

NEPAL: The Haliya bonded labour slavery system must be abolished without further delay (Asian Legal Resource Centre, August 26, 2010):

“The Haliyas (literally, ‘one who tills land’) are enslaved within a system of bonded labour, and are forced by a landlord or ‘master’ to execute various hard labour duties (usually agricultural) for many years, often for an entire lifetime. Other than the agricultural work, Haliyas fulfil a range of duties, including making tools (such as spades, knives, and sickles) out of iron, grazing animals, sewing clothes, making utensils and pots, and so forth. The labourers are not paid a wage for their extensive work; often they are only provided with a small amount of food. Extreme poverty and debt in the western and far western regions of Nepal has relegated many members of the lower castes, known as Dalits, to Haliya status.

“Haliyas are forced to till a small patch of land in order to repay a debt, and are often held captive with their entire families. The enslaved Haliyas typically have no direct association with any debts; in the overwhelming majority of cases, the laborers are held because of debts accumulated by their ancestors over many generations. Such debts are often so excessive that a Haliya’s work over an entire lifetime will not generate sufficient revenue to even marginally reduce the interest incurred on the debts. [...]

“Despite being malnourished, Haliyas are expected to perform extraordinarily demanding labor duties. According to a custom known as Doli, they must carry exorbitantly heavy wooden carriages on their shoulders for hours at a time. Another custom (Khali) dictates that Haliyas are entitled to no fresh food at all–only leftover goods from the harvest. Despite working excessively long hours to fulfill grueling tasks, Haliyas typically receive only a bowl of white rice per day for their labor. [...]

“The overwhelming majority of Haliyas are Dalits. In fact, Nepal’s system of caste discrimination remains a direct factor leading to both the origins and continuation of the Haliya system.”

And see:

Policy spoke in Haliya rehab wheel: Ad hoc approach exacerbating their woes by Kamal Raj Sigdel (Kathmandu Post, April 25, 2010):

“Although the government outlawed Haliya practice on September 6, 2008, unsurprisingly most of them are still working for their landlords.

“‘When the Kamaiya system [of bonded labor in the Tarai region] was outlawed in 2000, it actually liberated the landlords, not the bonded labourers,’ says Laxman Kumar Hamal, member secretary of the Freed Kamaiya Rehabilitation Execution Committee at the Ministry of Land Reform (MoLR). ‘The same mistake has been repeated in the case of Haliyas.’

“For instance, the form that is being used to collect data on Haliyas does not require landlords to express commitment to help rehabilitate the tillers, which officials say is a serious oversight that will create problems in rehabilitation.”

DEBT BONDAGE AND CHILD LABOR IN PAKISTAN

Pakistan's Kiln Workers Bricked In by Debt (The Washington Post)

"'This work shortens your life. No one would do it by choice,' said the man, Abdul Sadiq. 'The problem is that you can never earn enough to leave. If your wife needs an operation or the rainy seasons lasts too long, you have to borrow from the kiln owners. You try to repay it, but the debt stays with you, sometimes for your whole life. It's like a pair of invisible handcuffs.'

"Brickmakers toil near the bottom of Pakistan's economic and social ladder, forever at the mercy of heat, dirt, human greed and official indifference. By law, they cannot be compelled to work or be kept in bondage; in practice, the great majority are bound to the kilns by debt. The work is seasonal and families move often, but if they leave one kiln for another, their debt is transferred to the new owner. If they try to escape, they said, they are hunted down.

"At least 200,000 Pakistanis, many of them children, work in more than 2,500 kilns across the country, according to studies by labor advocacy organizations. Their plight is well known and often described as a national disgrace. Human rights groups have exposed cases of kiln owners chaining or imprisoning workers; reformists have initiated programs to forgive their debts and educate their children.

"But resistance to change has been stubborn. Kiln owners tend to be economically powerful and politically well-connected, while many brick workers are illiterate, nomadic, cut off from modern society and unaware of their rights."

See also anti-caste: ESTIMATED 8 MILLION BONDED LABORERS IN PAKISTAN (June 26, 2006) and CASTE-BASED BONDED LABOR IN PAKISTAN (March 13, 2006)

PEOPLE WITH LOW STATUS ARE EASY PREY TO MONEYLENDERS

1,337 Dalit families deprived of houses (Express Buzz)

"Gowri, of Dharmapuri pan chayat, had borrowed Rs 2,000 from one Pavun Thevar and repaid Rs 1,500. The moneylender had calculated an interest of Rs 12,000 as the balance amount and seized her land and house.

"In most cases, backward class and low-income groups, mainly the Arundhathiyars [an untouchable caste], fell prey to these usurious moneylenders, who get their thumbprint on plain bond paper. This is later filled in with whatever they want.

"Hapless victims pledge documents such as ration cards, bonds of LIC and Provident Fund, bank passbooks and even ATM cards.

"Most of these usurers belong to caste Hindus and are either from the locality or neighbouring districts like Madurai. There have been instances of moneylenders compelling women debtors for sex, AMMI activists said.

"On many occasions, husbands who borrowed the money flee the village leaving the women to bear the brunt. An adolescent girl near Bodi attempted suicide after being sexually assaulted by a lender.

"There have been cases of suicides near Periyakulam and Muthurengapuram of Andipatti region because of torture from moneylenders."

ESTIMATED HALF MILLION BONDED LABORERS IN STATE OF PUNJAB

Beyond Green Revolution: Bonded labour alive and suffering in Punjab (merinews)

"According to a rough estimate, there are at least five lakh landless labourers in Punjab, who are working in the fields akin to bonded labour. Only once in a year on June 15, are they allowed to change masters but they must be slaves throughout their lives. [...]

"Talking to merinews, Jai Singh, who has been working for the rights of these landless workers since years, said 'Most of these men are in debt bondage, their fathers or forefathers took some minor loans and now they are caught in a debt trap,' adding that these labourers and their families work as bonded labour and even their families are in bondage.

"Caste plays an important role in this whole issue as the majority of these workers are from scheduled castes living on the peripheries of the society...."

CASTE-BASED BONDED CHILD LABOR IN SOUTH INDIA

India's cotton fields: Over 4 lakh child labourers (rediff)

"Nearly 4,16,000 children below 18 years, almost half of which are even younger than 14 years of age are working in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, the report said, adding that compared to the 2003-2004 harvest season, the total number of such children has risen.

[...]

"The overwhelming majority of the children working in the cotton fields are either Dalits or tribals, it said.

"Around 13 big Indian companies and two multinational groups are involved in this 'modern form of child slavery,' the report revealed."

ESTIMATED 8 MILLION BONDED LABORERS IN PAKISTAN

Walking Out Of Slavery by Sarah Stuteville (The Indypendent)

"The Pakistani Bonded Labour System Abolition Act, which was officially adopted by parliament in 1992, outlaws bonded labor, cancels all existing bonded debts, forbids lawsuits for the recovery of debts and punishes using children as bonded labor with up to five years in prison and an $800 fine. Bonded laborers can petition for a writ of habeas corpus and free themselves legally. Despite these laws, the number of bonded laborers in Pakistan is estimated conservatively at several million, while human rights activists believe the total hovers closer to 8 million.

"The nature of bonded labor in Pakistan explains why these laws are ineffective. Many laborers are confined to brick kilns in Punjab and agricultural fields in Sindh, where they work seven days a week from sunrise to sunset. They are often born into bondage and never receive any kind of education, leaving them incapable of performing the basic math to calculate the debt that enslaved them or the wages they earn. They are easily tricked – if not terrorized – into laboring long after their real debts are paid.

"If they are not born into bondage, Pakistan’s poorest, most marginalized populations can find themselves there due to an expensive dowry, an illness or a drought in their native villages. Their financial difficulties drive them to factory bosses or landowners who offer them peshgi, or advance wages, and they and their entire families – including young children – are claimed as property.

"Even if offered freedom, some workers have no other economic options. But many do escape and are often hunted down by owners and forced back into bondage. Human rights groups have reported that landlords, particularly in rural Sindh, maintain private jails where errant laborers are kept. Local police and politicians often turn a blind eye to such practices due to strong ties with landowners."

CASTE-BASED BONDED LABOR IN PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN: Free at Last, From Generations of Bonded Labour (Inter Press Service News Agency)

'''All my family members worked, including my mother and younger sister. My mother would say we have to work to pay off the loans taken by my grandfather from the landlords. However hard and long we all worked, the exorbitant interest on the loan my grandfather had taken was never paid.'''

See also:

In Pakistan, 'slavery' persists (The Christian Science Monitor, December 15, 2003)