The Society for Protection of Rights of the Child (Sparc), an NGO, is launching a five-day campaign from 9th to 13th November 2009 to create awareness about the plight and problems of bonded labourers and proper implementation of bonded labour laws.
This was announced by Kashif Bajeer, National Manager Bonded Labour Programme and Nazra Jhan of Sparc in a statement on Sunday. They said that the campaign was being simultaneously launched in different cities of Pakistan and would end with a freed bonded labour festival in Hyderabad on November 13th. They said that liberated bonded labourers and activists of civil society organisations, trade unions, media persons, lawyers, human rights activist and other stakeholders would participate in the campaign.
They demanded that liberated bonded labourers and skilled workers be provided land to enable them to earn livelihood. They demanded that existing laws Bonded Labour Abolition Act 1992 and Rules 1995 on bonded labour be implemented in letter and spirit and a parliamentary committee be constituted to review the existing laws.
They said that in the light of Supreme Court directives of October 20, 2006 to the provincial chief secretaries as a short term measure, the standing operating procedure be adopted by the provincial governments for introducing a mechanism through the labour department for registration of brick kilns. They said that access to bonded labour funds should be simplified and the institution of district vigilance committees should be activated by linking it to provincial legal aid cells. They said that the recovery of the family of Mannu Bheel should be given priority by the government and superior judiciary.
They called upon the government to implement international conventions and minimum wages in different sectors of economy, including informal sector. They said that tens of thousands of labourers in the country, particularly in southern Sindh and Punjab, lived in miserable conditions at agriculture farms and brick kilns.
They added that so far 6,000 bonded labourers had been liberated through courts. They appealed to the print and electronic media to espouse the cause of bonded labour. They said that the Sparc was successfully running bonded labour projects in Mithi, Umerkot, Sanghar and Hyderabad district of Sindh and also in Muzaffargarh in collaboration with TROCAIRE an international organisation.
They said that the NGO had been instrumental in providing NICs to 10,000 bonded labourers and the registration of their votes and birth of their children. The NGO had established a legal cell to provide free legal aid to the families of bonded labourers, they said. There are at least 1.7 million people in bonded labour in agriculture sector in Pakistan.