Source: The Express Tribune
FAISALABAD:
As many as 4.5 million kiln workers and their
generations are experiencing overburdened and bonded
labour problems at around 18,000 brick kilns spread across
Pakistan, according to a study by the Asian Human Rights
Commission (AHRC).
“Ata Muhammad, 28, and his wife work for 18 hours a day at
a kiln in the outskirts of Lahore, where they are paid Rs450 per
1,000 bricks, irrespective of how long it takes to complete the task,”
the report stated. It takes a family of five a whole day to make
1,000 bricks.
The tasks include fetching mud two or three kilometres away,
soaking it in water, moulding it into bricks, transporting the
finished product to the kiln and finally baking and grading
each brick.
Credit line acts as a noose
In case of severe weather or illness, workers earn nothing
and are forced deeper into debt, begging for loans from
their employers who are happy to extend the line of credit,
which acts as a noose.
The loans, known as an ‘advance’, or ‘peshgi’ in Urdu, are
the root of all kiln workers’ woes, Secretary General of the
Bonded Labour Liberation Front Ghulam Fatima told the
AHRC.
Kiln owners extend loans for occasions such as marriage,
births and deaths, in an effort to tie the workers more
tightly into servitude, Fatima said.
This action is totally illegal, as ruled by the Supreme Court of
Pakistan (in 1988). Under the law, a kiln owner can only
release an advance equal to or less than two weeks’ wages,
she said. The minimum wage set by the government is
Rs665.7 per 1,000 bricks, but kilns pay as low as Rs300,
she further said.
The AHRC report noted that if the government ensured
payment of minimum wages, most workers would be
able to clear their debts.
Tradable commodity
General Secretary of All Pakistan Bhatta Mazdoor (kiln workers)
Union Mehmood Butt told the AHRC that families of kiln workers
carry price tags equivalent to their outstanding loans. By paying
this amount, owners can effectively ‘purchase’ workers from one
another, Butt told AHRC.
Runaway workers are traced by the help of police and local
politicians and all the money spent during this exercise is added
to their debt, according to Butt.
President of the Labour Education Foundation Khalid Mehmood
pointed out that kiln owners prevent workers from getting
Computerised National Identity Cards (CNIC). They even
use armed gangsters to prevent workers from reaching the
Nadra mobile registration centres.
“Once you have a CNIC, you can apply for social security
registration, get enrolled on voting lists, benefit from welfare
schemes, open bank accounts or apply for jobs. Kiln owners
cannot afford all this,” he said.
Government intervention
Media spokesperson for the Punjab labour department Shaukat
Niazi believes bonded labour cannot be eradicated without
empowering the workers through education.
Niazi said that a project in the district of Kasur has set up
200 schools to educate 8,000 kiln workers’ children.
He said that the government was issuing soft loans to kiln
workers to eliminate the advance payment system, was
working towards registration of workers with the social
security department and has set up a helpline to assist
workers in demanding minimum wage and other rights
granted to them under the law, the study report of AHRC
concluded.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 3rd, 2012.
