Human bondage
Dawn · Editorial ·
Law enforcement and political quarters are notorious for protecting the perpetrators, instead of ensuring legal implementation. Systemic coercion will keep Pakistan from becoming a humane state.
BONDED labour is modern-day slavery. It exists in Pakistan as a system of generational exploitation sustained by abject poverty, debt, and feudal power.
The recent praise for Pakistan from the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for raising the minimum marriageable age to 18 is, no doubt, welcome. It follows the committee’s review of Pakistan’s second periodic report. But questions about the high numbers of child brides and bonded labour eclipse the compliment. Underage marriage is enslavement, while the purchase of bricks produced through debt bondage by construction companies and government groups continues to sustain the curse of bonded labour. Lifespans rarely outlast the loans driven up by interest charges. Generations inherit a cycle of debt and abuse.
The scourge does not spare children, who begin life in inhuman working and living conditions. Entire families slog for pathetic sums far below the legal minimum wage. The Constitution outlaws all forced labour and slavery; the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1992, criminalises the practice.