Chipping away at modern-day slavery in India: A victory in Rajasthan
By Richa (with inputs from HRLN’s Anti-trafficking and anti-slavery Initiative)
Richa is a communication officer at HRLN
India has the most people living in modern slavery in the whole world.
Based on a study conducted last year, more than 18 million Indians work in exploitative, oppressive condition, making up about 1.4% of our population.
Modern day slaves may be people involved in forced labour, trafficked sex workers, debt bondage, child labour, and a variety of other practices exploiting vulnerable populations. Expectedly, class and caste divides add to the problem, with adivasi (tribal) and Dalit (lower caste) communities suffering some of the most egregious violations of human rights.
Modern day slaves may be people involved in forced labour, trafficked sex workers, debt bondage, child labour, and a variety of other practices exploiting vulnerable populations. Expectedly, class and caste divides add to the problem, with adivasi (tribal) and Dalit (lower caste) communities suffering some of the most egregious violations of human rights.
However, instead of working on tackling this scourge, the Indian government has been trying to discredit the publishers of these studies. According to a report by The Indian Express, India’s Intelligence Bureau singled out the Walk Free Foundation — an anti-slavery organization — and wrote to the Prime Minister’s office and other high-level government departments, advising them to ‘discredit’ its September report and “to pressure the ILO to disassociate itself from Walk Free”.
On October 28, 25 people from eight families were rescued from exploitative, coercive employment from Rajasthan’s Kishanganj area [pictured]. The rescue was initiated and coordinated by Human Rights Law Network activists and lawyers, who alerted the state administration to the plight of the workers.
These workers were all from the Sahira Adivasi community in Madhya Pradesh (a central Indian state), said the convener of the National Campaign Committee For Eradication Of Bonded Labour (NCCEBL) — a wing of the HRLN. They had been trafficked from their village and brought to Rajasthan, lured by the possibility of jobs and pay. They were then employed in agricultural fields and households, held captive for the last seven years without proper pay or the chance to go back home.
Their stories echo millions of others in this country — but are heart-rending all the same. The NCCEBL convener, Nirmal Gorana, explained that the workers were first brought into employment by landowners who gave them a small ‘advance’ payment. The landowners also loaned money to the workers for expenses such as medical treatments or marriages in their family, and then made them work for years on end (and as long as 15 hours daily) as repayment for these loans.
Even several years and tens of thousands of man hours of labour later, these ‘loans’, so cleverly granted, still seem to be unpaid.
One boy, Ghansu (name changed), aged only 16, said, “[One] Vijender Singh trafficked me from Paronda village in Guna, Madhya Pradesh, and brought me to Badipura by offering me an advance payment of Rs 5,000 when I was 10-years-old. For the past five years, I have been working to repay this amount but it has still not been repaid. I am now 16, but still I have not been given a single penny, neither was I allowed to go home. I want to be freed from him.”
Another labourer named Rajkumari, wife of Raghuvir, told that the landowners had forced her entire family to work for more than 17 hours daily for the past two years, but — again — their loan had apparently still not been repaid.
“I have two children. My elder son, who is 13, works in the field and with cattle. Vijender Singh forces my 10-year-old daughter to do household chores. We are not paid anything for our work,” Rajkumari said.
Labourers also alleged receiving death threats from their ‘owners’. Ajay, a 24-year-old labourer said that a landowner, Gurucharan, had brought him and his wife to Rajasthan after loaning them Rs 15,000 for a medical treatment and assuring him of more work. However, once in Rajasthan, Ajay and his wife were threatened and forced to work without pay. They survived on a 20-kilogram monthly handout of wheat.
After HRLN alerted local authorities, the Baran administration raided the farmhouse and agricultural fields these workers were employed in. The police then recorded the workers’ statements. The next day, after seven long years, they went home to Madhya Pradesh.
An HRLN advocate, Anupradha Singh, said that such cases of modern day slavery were covered by the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976; SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989; Interstate Migrant Workmen Act, 1979; Juvenile Justice Act and section 370 of the Indian Penal Code. And now, action will be taken against the landowners under all these laws, she said.
