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Over 100 people are cycling 1,500 kilometres from Dalel Singhwala
in Mansa district to New Delhi to protest against bonded labour
in India. The demonstrators will arrive on 15 September and hold
a sit-in outside Parliament demanding action against bonded labour
in Mansa and throughout the country.
Over 500,000 men, women and children are enslaved as agricultural
bonded labourers in Punjab, India, the organisation Dalit Dasta
Virodhi Andolan (DDVA), Anti-Slavery International's local partner,
estimates.
Bonded labour is illegal under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition)
Act 1976, but the law is not implemented and those who use bonded
labour are not being punished. Nearly 300 cases of bonded labour
from Mansa, logged from 1999 to the present, are pending before
the district magistrate, high court and Punjab State Human Rights
Commission, Chandigarh; no action has been taken by the authorities
on any of them DDVA says.
"Police officials are 'advising' bonded labourers to clear
the debt, encouraging landlords to further exploit bonded labourers
making a mockery of the constitutional provisions. The District
Administration must enforce all of the laws enacted by Parliament
and the Supreme Courts pronouncements. But instead of understanding
and adhering to the definition of the law, the District Administration
is creating its own interpretations of bonded labour,"
DDVA said.
The Indian Government has only identified 280,000 cases of bonded
labour since 1976, but many organisations consider this a small
fraction of the total and estimate the actual number of bonded labourers
throughout India is in the millions.
A disproportionate number of bonded labourers are dalits, low
cast, or from minority or indigenous groups. People become bonded
labourers when they take or are tricked into taking a loan vital for
their survival. To repay the debt, they are forced to work long hours
up to seven days a week, 365 days a year. Some receive food and shelter
as "payment" for their work, but may never pay off the loan,
which can be passed down through several generations. |
