Caste and bonded labour
- Umerkot, Sindh, Pakistan, April 2008. 40 families of the Oad caste in Pakistan’s Sindh province work at this brick factory. Among them is Phoolan, her three children and husband. Whether they borrowed money from the owners, also of the Oad caste, is not clear, but very likely. They get two euros per 1000 bricks which is the amount they can produce in one day.
Despite being prohibited in many countries, slavery is widespread in South Asia. Bonded labour, in which a person is bonded by a loan advance taken against their work, resulting in a loss of control over labour conditions and terms of work, is rooted in the caste system and related types of customary feudal agricultural relationships.
Dalit bonded labourers
Those who are employed as bonded labourers in South Asia are predominantly Dalits, also known as ‘untouchables’. According to an Anti Slavery International report, the vast majority (80%-98%) of bonded labourers are either from communities designated as “untouchable” or from indigenous communities. Weak economic positions and lack of access to resources increase Dalits' dependence on wage labour. Extreme poverty forces Dalits to take up loans and they hold no other assets to lever their debt other than their labour. In addition to poverty, practices of social exclusion of Dalits push them into bondage.
When Dalits try to exercise their rights or resist abuse and exploitation, they are faced with extremely hostile and sometimes brutal resistance by the higher caste villagers that uphold the hierarchy. Consequently, when Dalits resist their oppression, they risk complete boycott, cutting them off from land use, access to markets and employment. Other retaliations against Dalit assertion include killings, gang rapes, looting and arson.
Bonded labour in numbers
There is no accurate number on the global scale of bonded labour. According to the ILO, the global number of forced labourers is at least 12.3 million. Out of this total number, the Asia and Pacific Region accounts for approximately 9.5 million persons. The ILO stresses that due to the uncertainty of sources and means of measurement, these are minimum estimates.
Human Rights Watch has estimated that India alone is home to 40 million bonded labourers, out of which 15 million are children. UNESCO studies set the number of slaves in bonded labour in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal together at 15-20 million. There is a wide consensus that there is a need for developing measures to provide accurate figures.
International Legislation
Bonded labour is a contemporary form of slavery and is prohibited under international law, including the UN Slavery Conventions of 1926 and 1956, and ILO Conventions.
Bonded labour is defined in the 1956 UN Supplementary Convention on Slavery as “the status or condition arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or those of a person under his control as security for a debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined.”
The two fundamental ILO conventions are the Forced Labour Convention (no. 29) and the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (No. 105). Both of these, as well as the UN Convention on Slavery, have been ratified by India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan and the countries are all obliged to report to the ILO every two years. The ILO’s Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) and Trafficking Protocol of 2000 also specifically include forced labour and debt bondage.
Country information on bonded labour
Caste-based forms of bonded labour
Dalits are particularly vulnerable to bonded labour, because of their socio-economic status, but bonded labour is also conjoined with caste in the form of caste-based occupations. Two well-known forms of caste-based and bonded occupations in India are manual scavenging and the systems of forced prostitution.
> Click here to read more about manual scavenging
> Click here to read more about forced prostitution
Act now:
> Sign a pledge on 'No Slavery - No Exception' campaign by Anti-Slavery International
>Watch a movie about manual scavenging
> Support the international campaign 'Foul Play' for the eradication of manual scavenging by 2010
References
Bonded Labour in India: Its incidence and Pattern by Ravi S. Srivastava, published by the International Labour Office, Geneva, June 2005.
Poverty, Discrimination and Slavery: The reality of bonded labour in India, Nepal and Pakistan Anti-Slavery International, 2008.
India's Childhood in the "Pits" by Dhaatri Resource Centre for Women and Children - Samata, HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, March 2010
The Enslavement of Dalit and Indigenous Communities in India, Nepal and Pakistan Through Debt Bondage, Anti-Slavery International, 2001.
Dalit girls working under slave like conditions in India's garment industry
A Global Alliance against Forced Labour Global Report under the Follow-up to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, 2005 International Labour Conference published by the ILO.
The Small Hands of Slavery: Bonded Child Labor In India, Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Project, Human Rights Watch/Asia. Published by Human Rights Watch 1996.
Videos - Caste Discrimination and Bonded Labour
Below is a playlist from IDSNs YouTube Channel with a selection of videos dealing with caste discrimination and bonded labour. Please scroll over the image below and use the arrows to get to the next videos.
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