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Bonded labor, also called debt bondage, is defined as
a form of slavery by the Abolition of Forced Labor Convention
1957 (No 105), and a form of forced labor under ILO Forced
Labor Convention 1930 (No 29).
Millions of children remain
bonded in South Asia simply because their parents are
bonded to their masters or landlords due to debts or loans.
Almost all South Asian societies bear this burden. However
it is more prevalent in India, Pakistan and Nepal.
Bonded labor, also called
debt bondage or peshgi, is a form of slavery in which
poor workers, instead of taking wages in exchange for
their work, take advance payment from an employer at exorbitant
interest rates, and in return pledge themselves, or one
or more members of their family to work until the loan
is paid off.
Universally recognised as slavery, the debt bondage of
children and adults has been proscribed in international
laws on slavery and forced labour for many years. Most
recently, child debt bondage has been defined by the International
Labour Organization (ILO) as a ‘worst form of child
labour’ – and therefore is to be considered
an unconditional priority for eradication.
A person can also become a bonded laborer when he or she
is tricked into taking a loan. The person is forced to
work long hours for little or no pay, often for seven
days a week in order to repay the debt. The loan seldom
gets paid back mainly due to the high interest rates,
and passes from one generation to another. As a result
entire families and future generations are held in bondage,
working for the employer, with little hope of escaping
the debt trap. Threats and violence are used to prevent
people escaping from this form of
Contract labor is another form of bondage in which a parent
or employer contracts the labor of a child or employee
to someone else in return for a cash advance. The peshgi
is paid to a parent or guardian, who then provides the
child to work off the debt.
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Violation
of Rights |
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The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states
that no one shall be held in slavery or servitude. |
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The ILO Forced
Labor Convention 1930 (No. 29), which requires the
suppression of the use of forced or compulsory labor
in all its form. |
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Was the only Pakistani
NGO to submit an Alternative Report to the Committee
on the Rights of the Child in 2003, when the
Committee was considering Pakistan’s Second
Report; |
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The ILO Minimum
Age Convention 1973 (No. 173), which prohibits the
employment of children in hazardous work and employment. |
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The UN Convention
on the Rights of the Child 1989, which requires countries
to provide for the protection of the child from economic
exploitation and from performing any work that is
likely to be hazardous to or to interfere with the
child’s education, health, physical, mental,
spiritual, moral or social development; to take all
measures to prevent the abduction of, the sale of
or traffic in children for any purpose or in any form;
and to protect the child against all forms of exploitation
prejudicial to any aspect of the child’s welfare. |
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The ILO Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labor (No 182), which lists three absolute categories of Worst Forms of Child Labor: all forms of slavery, use in illegal activities and hazardous works. |
The phenomenon of child labor is embedded
in the socio-culture of South Asian societies. It is due to illiteracy, poverty, traditional beliefs, values, customs and attitudes that child bondage persists. These children are denied their basic human rights, including education, basic health facilities and often they are forced to work long hours in unhealthy working conditions. They are sometimes treated cruelly and denied any pay. Children are the most vulnerable of all workers and they are sometimes bonded or forced to work alone, separated from their families. |
