Issues pertaining to Human Rights Violations and Bonded Labour System: A Case Study

According to the definition given in section 2(g) of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, bonded labour means service arising out of loan/debt/advance. It represents the relationship between a creditor and a debtor wherein the debtor undertakes to mortgage his services or the services of any of his family members to the creditor for a specified or unspecified period with or without wages accompanied by denial of choice of alternative avenues of employment or to deny him freedom of movements, then the person would normally be covered under the definition of a bonded labour.

Considerable interest has come to be shown in bonded labour during the past two decades because it is considered in­compatible with our social ideal of egalitarianism with our commitment to human rights.

When the Constitution of India was framed, Article 23 was enshrined in it which prohibited ‘traffic in human beings’, ‘beggar’, and other similar forms of forced labour. Despite the provision of Article 23 in the Constitution, it was seen that there was no effective implementation of this for bonded labour and no serious effort was made to give effect to this article and stamp out the shocking practice of bonded labour. The Forced Labour (Abolition) Convention adopted by the International La­bour Organisation (ILO) in 1919 was ratified by India only in November 1954.

Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976

Relief available to the victim: The bonded labour is to be immediately released from bondage. His liability to repay bonded debt is deemed to have been extinguished. Freed bonded labour shall not be evicted from his homesteads or other residential premises which he was occupying as part of the consideration for the bonded labour. A rehabilitation grant of Rs. 20,000/- to each of the bonded labour is to be granted and assistance for his rehabilitation provided.

Penalties: The offense under the Act is cognizable and bailable. Any person who contravenes provisions of the act is punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and also with a fine which may extend to two thousand rupees.

The Supreme Court has entrusted to the NHRC the responsibility of monitoring the directions of the Court issued from time to time and the implementation of the provisions of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act.

Case Study: IJM and NASC Survey

A 2015 survey conducted by the International Justice Mission (IJM) and National Adivasi Solidarity Council (NASC) states that over four lakh bonded labourers work in 11 industries across 31 districts in Tamil Nadu and around 60% of them were paid below the minimum wages. The leading newspaper Indian Express published an article in February 2018 outlining the accounts of two victims of bonded labour. One of the victims named S Raman realized after 35 years that he was working as a bonded labour under his employer. Raman and his sibling were born and raised in the compound of rice mills where his father and grandfather had worked all their lives. From the age of 12, both the siblings also started working at the rice mill. Raman’s liberty and freedom were completely lost to the domination of his employer but he could not leave the job as he had never seen or done any work other than the works of rice mills. He had to take permission from the employer for attending any family ceremony or medical emergency. Moreover, only one member was allowed to attend, while the rest were supposed to compensate for an advance that was paid to them. Paying an advance is a way of keeping them bonded forever.

Why do employers engage with bonded labourers?

1. Labour is engaged at a lower cost,

2. The employers do not have to extend fringe benefits to the workers, like pensions or paid holidays,

3. The employers are not under any obligation of provid­ing welfare and security measures to the workers

4. Forced labour can hereditarily descend from father to son or be passed on for generations together. During the period of bondage, the debtor cannot seek employment with any other person.

A prominent feature of bonded labour in India is that during the period of bondage, the worker cannot seek alternate employment with any other employer and is therefore restricted. So, along with restrictions on freedom of movement, there is also a restriction on freedom of occupation. The scope of the bonded labour system in India was mostly restricted to agriculture in rural areas but today it can be seen as a widespread phenomenon occurring in a myriad of industries like brick kilns, stone quarries, glass factories, bidi factories, factories of gemstones, detergents, carpets, and many more.

The reason for bonded labour to be spreading across the society varies from case to case but the causes for bonded labour can be broadly classified as follows:

ECONOMIC CAUSES: extreme poverty of people, inabil­ity to find work for a livelihood, inadequate size of the landholdings to support family, lack of alternative small-scale loans for the rural and urban poor, natural calamities

SOCIAL CAUSES: lack of concrete social welfare schemes to safeguard against hunger and illness, non-compulsory and unequal educational system, migration in search of employment, and indifference and corruption among government officials, illiteracy, ignorance, immaturity, and lack of skill and professional training

RELIGIOUS CAUSES: Religious arguments are used to con­vince the people of low castes that religion enjoins upon them to serve people of high castes aka caste-based discrimination

Anti-Slavery International, the United Kingdom-based international non-government organization in one of its report namely, ‘The Enslavement of Dalit and Indigenous Communities in India, Nepal, and Pakistan through debt bondage’ published in 2001 estimates that 80% to 98% of the bonded labour are from the Dalit community which is regarded as untouchable. Caste discrimination is one of the important features of debt bondage in South Asia where the upper-caste Hindus dominate the socially backward class, especially Dalits and Sudras. This kind of exploitation functions on the deep underlying inequality and disparity prevalent in Indian history. As an example of caste-based bonded labour, the system of “Bartan” in Orissa is a must study where members of barber or washerman communities are employed in customary services by the upper caste families for small remuneration like 15 kg paddy for the whole year. According to this system, the 15 kg paddy is provided to each married male of the barber or washerman family by the upper caste family at a particular time of the year and the married man who now would be called ‘sewak’ will have to render services to the upper caste family throughout the year without any remuneration. In case the ‘sewak’ denies the service, his family will be secluded from the village community. The Government of Orissa banned this system in 2011, but some practices related to the system are still prevalent. A very simple understanding of bonded labour goes by the logic that a person works under another person until his debts are paid off but when we study various cases of bonded labour in different parts of India we can say that besides this debtor and creditor relationship there are also other dimensions to it. Not all bonded labour emerges due to the failure of repayment of loan taken by the debtor from the creditor. It also emerges from the caste-based atrocities and disparities as mentioned above in the case of Bartan system of Orissa. Very clearly, in this case, the ‘sewak’ does not necessarily take money from the upper caste family. It is a kind of traditional custom that was being followed.

Bonded labour has changed over the years. It is no longer limited to the traditional power equation in agriculture, in which the lower castes are expected to perform menial tasks in exchange for guaranteed subsistence. The prevalent system today in contemporary times is one of debt bondage. Poor and without resources, these people take credit from the local landlord or factory owner, or contractor. The loan is akin to an advance on wages to be paid off by working. Except it would seem the debt is never repaid and only keeps growing. Piling interest, charges for delayed payments, meager wages, and fresh loans for subsistence and emergencies means there is no escaping bondage.

Conclusion

The main problem that is faced in the implementation of the 1976 Act is the identification of bonded labourers. Neither the administrators at the district and tehsil levels admit the existence of bonded labourers in their areas nor do the creditors accept that any bonded workers are serv­ing them, nor are the workers themselves willing to give statements that they are being forced to work as bonded labourers since long. The economic rehabilitation under the Act includes finding jobs for them, getting them minimum wages, giving them training in arts and crafts, allotment of agricultural land, helping them in developing the al­lotted land, helping them in the processing of forest produce, educating them and their children, arranging for their medical care, etc. for which the government allocates funds but the problem in contemporary times is that the bureaucrats engage in corruption and don’t recognize the bonded labour in their district or areas for their personal gain of the money from the funds. It is only the so­cial workers attached to non-political social action groups and voluntary organizations who identify the bonded labourers and come to their rescue.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the SCLHR or its members.