3071-The political economy of new slavery

132 Bonded Labour in South Asia
taken advances for their work. There is also some bondage in construction
work throughout India. Usually, men and boys are trapped into
debt for such work, but details are scarce.
In Nepal, bonded workers in the domestic sector have been part and
parcel of the kamaiya system. After the government announced that
kamaiya bonded labourers would be freed, many landlords and their
relations brought the children of former bonded labourers to Kathmandu
and small townships such as Nepalganj and Dhangadi. Concerned
Centre for Child Labour in Nepal (CWIN) provides details of violations
of children’s rights in published research (CWIN, 2002). Despite the
freeing of kamaiya bonded labourers, many children from ethnic Tharu
communities are still held in bondage in remote villages in five of the
mid-western and far-western plain districts of Nepal.
Interventions
Intervention initiated internationally
The UN Supplementary Convention on Slavery in 1956 showed debtbondage
as a slavery issue which needed to be tackled. There have been
other international instruments, particularly those from the ILO. Other
organizations, also, have been involved. Anti-Slavery International, the
world’s oldest human rights organization, was the first to campaign
against debt-bondage. Also, it had an important role in drafting the 1956
convention and in the creation of the UN Working Group on Contemporary
Forms of Slavery. This has been a conduit for questioning governments
about their efforts to eradicate slavery, including debt-bondage.
At the sub-regional level, the creation in the late 1980s of the South
Asia Coalition against Child Servitude (SACCS) increased the pressure, and
the organization played an important part in the global march against
child labour. Through a number of public activities and campaigns in
the countries in South Asia, SACCS has also resorted to interventions in
the field and has rescued child bonded labourers in India and provided
alternative livelihoods. The member organizations of SACCS became
important players in different South Asian countries to help create
Rugmark Foundations.
Intervention initiated nationally
Work against the system of bondage in South Asia started at a national
level in the mid-1970s, and in India the campaign became a movement
in the 1980s. The Bonded Labour Liberation Front, under the
leadership of Swami Agnivesh, created awareness in the political arena