A Global Alliance Against Forced Labour - International Labour ...

A GLOBAL ALLIANCE AGAINST FORCED LABOURBox 2.1.Gender and bonded labourLittle attention has been given, historically, to the particular problems faced by women and girls in bondedlabour situations. This refl ects their overall subordinate position in the patriarchal societies of South Asia– in which poor women are triply disadvantaged by their gender, by their membership of low castes orother low-status groups, and by virtue of being in bonded or otherwise exploitative labour arrangements.Regardless of whether their involvement in bonded labour is indirect or direct, women appear to sufferdisproportionately compared to men. Indirect bondage is characteristic of traditional arrangements in theagricultural sector and also brick kilns: women (and children) are bonded through the male householdhead, and are not recognized as workers in their own right. They are subject to excessive workloads, oftenbeing required (in the case of agricultural workers) also to undertake domestic service in the landlord’shome as part of the debt repayment arrangement. There, they are especially susceptible to physical andsexual abuse. Women may be “bought and sold” when landlords agree between themselves to transfer thedebt, with no prior consultation with the woman involved.Direct bondage of women appears to be on the increase. In commercial agriculture, it has been reportedthat women may be increasingly sought out for bonded labour, in part owing to increased awareness andunwillingness of men to become bonded themselves. In the hybrid cotton seed farms of Andhra Pradesh,India, for example, emerging forms of bonded labour are shorter term, and specifi cally involve women andgirls. Women are also increasingly found bonded in informal industrial sectors, such as in carpet weaving,beedi manufacture, gem cutting and fi sh processing, often working from home or in secluded workshops.In all these situations, it is far from clear that the woman herself makes the decision to become bonded. Itseems likely that, as in most realms of decision-making at household level and beyond, it is the men whohave the greater say.Forms of coerced prostitution also prevail, as in the chukri system in Bangladesh and India, in which theyoung prostitute generally works without pay for one year or even longer, in order to repay a supposed debtto the brothel owner for food, clothes, make-up and living expenses.Recent evidence from Tamil Nadu, India, throws further light on the gender dimensions of bonded labour.Expenses on gender-related social ceremonies (puberty and marriage celebrations) emerge as the mainreason for families to take a bonded debt, followed by maternal and child health expenses. While moneylendersregard women as a “soft target” for usurious lending, employers provide advances to the malefamily members, who then put the whole family to work. Problems over debt repayment have been linkedto a rising trend in domestic violence. Alcoholism, especially of men, is also an increasing problem, leadingto even bigger gaps in the household budget and more recourse to loans and advances.Source: ILO: Rapid assessments of bonded labour in different sectors in Pakistan, DECLARATION Working Papers Nos.20-26 (Geneva, 2004); L. Da Corta; D. Venkateshwarlu: “Transformations in the age and gender of unfree workers onhybrid cotton seed farms in the Andhra Pradesh”, in Journal of Peasant Studies (London), Vol. 28, No. 3, April 2001,pp. 1-36; I. Guérin: Taking stock of micro-finance progress, South Asian Project against Debt Bondage, ILO/SFP (draft,February 2004).the kiln. The raid was conducted following a writpetition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court bytwo labourers. 50 In Tamil Nadu, 47 bonded labourerswere released from two brick kilns in Kancheepuramdistrict in 2003. Several serious cases have also cometo light in Uttar Pradesh. 51 A further complaint hasalleged that 50 bonded labourers were kept in a brickkiln in Bhind district in Madhya Pradesh. 52145. In parts of India, bonded labourers in minesalso tend for the most part to belong to the ScheduledCastes and Scheduled Tribes. An example is the mineral-richstate of Rajasthan, where mining provideswork for more than 3 million people, some 95 percent of these from the abovementioned social groups.Here the mines tend to be small-scale enterprises, operatedon leases from the Government, and workedentirely by manual labour with rudimentary technology.A small percentage of the workers come fromvillages in the mining area, but the vast majority aremigrants who retain links with their areas of origin.A survey in 2000 of sandstone mineworkers inJodhpur showed that the vast majority of workers are50. “Bonded labourers freed in Punjab”, in Sify News, 11 Feb. 2004, at www.sify.com .51. Nine Muslims were among 20 bonded labourers rescued from a brick kiln in Ghaziabad (NHRC Case No. 112/24/2002-03). The workershad been lured from their home district of Baghpat to work in the kiln and given Rs.2,000 each as an advance. Once they started working,they were paid less than half the promised wages, armed guards were used to restrict their movement and their payment was stopped completelyfor over a month. When they protested they were beaten and threatened that they would be thrown into the furnace. The NHRC hasbeen monitoring the rehabilitation of the workers.52. NHRC Case No. 60/12/03-04.32