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On 2 December, United Nations International Day for the Abolition
of Slavery, a Pakistan human rights activist arrives in London
to draw attention to the plight of bonded labourers in Pakistan
and particulaly the case of Munno Bheel.
Millions of men, women and children are forced into bonded labour
in South Asia. Forced by poverty or tricked into taking a loan for
the basic necessities of survival, their labour is demanded as repayment.
They are forced to work long hours, up to 365 days a year for little
or no pay. In return, they only receive basic food and shelter,
and may never pay off the loan, which can be passed down for generations.
Bonded labourer Munno Bheel and his family were freed with the
help of the NGO the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Special
Task Force for Sindh in 1996. But on 2 May 1998, their former landlord
and six other men abducted all of them, except for Munno.
Since the abduction, Munno, the Task Force and other organisations
including Anti-Slavery International, the world's oldest international
human rights organisation, have been trying to locate the Bheels
and have them released. Promises from senior police and politicians
have led to nothing.
Even though bonded labour has been illegal in Pakistan under the
Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act since 1992, the abuse is widespread
and continues openly.
"The culture of impunity must end. Prosecutions must be
initiated against all those who use bonded labour and against those
who use intimidation and violence to retain people as bonded labourers,"
Mary Cunneen Director of Anti-Slavery International said.
Bonded labour is one of the most widespread forms of slavery today.
Slaves are forced to work through mental and physical threat, dehumanised,
treated as commodities or bought and sold as property. They are
physically constrained or have restrictions placed on their freedom
of movement.
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