INDIA: Bonded labour in India

Bonded labour is prohibited in India by law. Though the Constitution directly and
indirectly prohibits the practice, vide Articles 21, 23 (1) and 24, a specific law that
prohibits the practice, the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act was legislated only
in 1976. Despite the statutory prohibition, bonded labour is widely practiced. The
worst affected are the children, particularly those from the Dalit community. The
practice is so prevalent in the country, that even a village in Uttar Pradesh state,
Bandhua, literally meaning bonded, is named after the practice. 

Bonded labour is known in different names in the country. In the farming sector it is
known as Hali in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh; Kaimuti, Janouri, Kamiah and others in
Bihar; Gothi in Orissa; Gassi-Gullu in Andhra Pradesh; and Panal Pathiran in
Tamilnadu. The practice exists in non-framing sectors like the Devadasi practice of
bonded sex workers; and in small-scale industries like firecracker, textile, leather
goods manufacturing sectors, brick and tile kilns and granite extraction industries.
The most affected by bonded labour in the non-farming industries are the children.
There is no credible and collated national statistics available about the number of
persons, in particular that of the children, affected by bonded labour in India. 

Bonded labour in the farming sector is mostly due to caste-based prejudices

practiced against the Dalit communities and due to the absence of a proper land
reforms policy. In states like Kerala, where land reforms has been implemented by
statute since the past four decades, bonded labour virtually has been eliminated as
opposed to states like Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamilnadu and Karnataka
where large extents of lands are still held by families that practice feudal forms of
land ownership and labour employment. 

Owing to the lack of livelihood options, large number of rural population are forced
to work for landlords and eventually end up in perpetual debt traps resulting in
entire families and villages ending up as bonded to the landlord for generations.
The absence of functioning public health facilities and education opportunities
literally push the rural population to work either as bonded labourers or to migrate
into urban areas seeking odd jobs. 

A large number of children employed as bonded labourers by the non-farming

sectors like small-scale textile, firecracker, leather goods manufacturing, brick kilns
and granite extraction units are from the families who are subjected to distress
migration from the rural villages. In the cities, children from these families are
employed as bonded labourers in restaurants and eateries or end up employed as
bonded beggars or fall prey to sex trade. 

Red light areas in cities like Mumbai and Varanasi have thousands of such children,
male and female, from far-flung areas of the country and from neighbouring
countries like Nepal and Bhutan. Owing to widespread corruption within the law
enforcement agencies and their close nexus with city based criminal gangs engaged
in human trafficking, rescuing the children fallen prey to human trafficking is
literally impossible. Human rights defenders like Mr. Ajeet Singh of Guria in
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh state and Ms. Hasina Kharbhih of Impulse NGO Network of
Shillong, Meghalaya state are threatened by these gangs whenever they engage in
rescue operations. 

In addition to the domestic distress migration from rural villages to cities forming
the never ending supply chain of bonded labourers in Indian cities, in Meghalaya
state, extraction of coal in private coal mines in the Jaintiya hills region is
exclusively undertaken by manual labourers, thousands of them bonded, who have
come to work in the mines from neighbouring Nepal and Bangladesh to beat acute
poverty in their home countries. Mining is carried out using primitive tools and with
hands, in hundreds of unprotected and unregulated mines, throughout the year. Of
the estimated one million foreign labourers, an estimated 70,000 are children from
Bangladesh and Nepal. 

The legal framework against bonded labour provided in the Bonded Labour System
(Abolition) Act, 1976 is supported by other legislations like the Contract Labour
(Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970; the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation
of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979; the Minimum Wages Act,
1948. Yet the practice continues unabated in India due to the failure in the
implementation of the laws. 

The Ministry of Labour, Government of India had initiated a Centrally Sponsored

Scheme under which Rs. 20,000 is provided for the rehabilitation of each bonded
labourer, to be equally contributed by the Federal and the State government. But,
by and large, the process of rehabilitation is frequently delayed, particularly in the
case of inter-state bonded migrant labourers, and the degree of concerted
convergent action required on the part of the administration is rarely forthcoming.
Prosecution of employers is also weak. Since the bonded labourers are very poor
and asset less, most of them relapse into bondage, while others experience only a
very marginal increase in income. The financial assistance from the government,
even if realized, in the absence of any additional support mechanism for a released
and asset less labourer is not sufficient support to start a new life. However
increasing the quantum of the support amount is not a viable solution. Instead to
end the practice what is required is the strict implementation of labour laws in
India. 

Internationally supported programmes for the elimination of bondage are few, with
the exception of a number of initiatives for elimination of child labour. Since June
2000, the ILO has been implementing a project to prevent and eliminate bonded
labour in South Asia. In India, the project has been operational in Rangareddy
district of Andhra Pradesh and Tiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu. 

Bonded labour must be addressed starting from the premise that lack of access of
the poorest households to appropriate financial services is one of the causes of
bonded labour. Preventive efforts must recognize the social dimensions of bondage,
and thereby address it through public sensitisation and rights awareness, adult
literacy, organising workers, income generation and vocational skills development.
The strategies to eliminate bonded labour need to go beyond the symptoms to
address the root causes (labour market segmentation, entrenched social
discrimination, lack of financial services, lack of outreach of social partners in the
informal economy). The multifaceted and deeply rooted nature of those causes
requires an integrated and long-term strategy. 

When designing interventions, a clear distinction must be drawn between 'severe'

and 'mild' forms of bonded labour, the latter being more suited to specific micro-
finance based solutions, which would be inappropriate for the former. The broad
linkages between bonded labour systems, production structures and the pattern of
development need to be better understood since the roots of bondage are related to
factors such as production technologies on the one hand, and economic
vulnerability and structural inequality, on the other. Long-term development and
land reform measures along with poverty alleviation and social security are
pathways out of bondage. 

Finally, the persistence of bondage is a consequence of weak enforcement of labour

laws and the laws of the land. India has a plethora of labour legislation regulating
the conditions of work of contract and migrant labour, prohibiting child labour in
hazardous industries, and for minimum wages. But these remain in large part
unimplemented. More significantly, in case after case, there is violation of the
fundamental human rights of workers, which are enshrined in the Constitution. A
concerted effort to ensure implementation of the law, by government in close
cooperation with employers' and workers' organisations and civil society, is called
for in this respect.