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Nepal police have attacked and arrested a leading human rights
activist and bonded labourers demonstrating for enslaved bonded
labourers' freedom outside Parliament in Kathmandu.
The Chairman of the Kamaiya Movement Working Committee and leader
of the largest grass roots organisation in the western district,
Backward Society Education (BASE), Dilli Chaudhari, was assaulted
by police and arrested on Monday 17 July, along with other demonstrators
outside Parliament.
According to reports from Kathmandu, the police charged the demonstrators
beating them with lathi, bamboo canes.
More than 200 demonstrators had planned a peaceful protest in
the forbidden area in front of Parliament and the Prime Minister's
office if the Government did not produce a programme of action to
free and rehabilitate bonded labourers on Friday 14 July.
The leader of the main opposition party, Unified Marxist-Leninist,
Madhav Kumar Nepal, and other opposition groups threatened to close
Parliament on 14 July if the Prime Minister failed to free bonded
labourers.
The Government did not convene Parliament that day. As a result,
the demonstrators carried out their promise to move into the off-limit
area in front of Parliament and were prepared to be arrested.
Anti-Slavery International's Director, Mike Dottridge, said: "This
appalling violence by the police must not be tolerated. The Government
must accept its responsibility and free all bonded labourers from
slavery as guaranteed by Nepal law. Violence is not the answer,
neither are empty promises. It is time for action to end slavery
in Nepal."
More than 200 people, including 125 bonded labourers from the
west, have been demonstrating in this area since early last week.
The demonstrating bonded labourers from the Tharu minority,
known as Kamaiya, are insisting the Government announces
their release. Specific demands include: release from the landlord;
a minimum wage and back pay for all of their unpaid work; ownership
of the land on which they have lived for generations; and protection
from reprisals.
Demonstrations began on 1 May 2000 in Kailali District's capital
in Nepal's far west. On 20 May, 20,000 people demonstrated in the
provincial capital. Originally 19 bonded labourers filed petitions
for freedom; the number has risen to 1,400.
Bonded labour is the most common form of slavery in South Asia.
People become bonded when they take loans as small as £10 to pay
for basic food, medicine, or vital social obligations, such as a
wedding or a funeral. To repay the debt, they are forced to work
long hours, seven days a week, 365 days a year on an indefinite
basis.
There are estimated to be more than 100,000 bonded labourers throughout
Nepal.
Bonded labour is prohibited under Nepal's 1990 Constitution, its
civil code and the 1956 UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition
of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar
to Slavery.
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