IHC orders bonded labour eradicated

Interior secretary to be summoned in case of failure

ISLAMABAD:

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has given a final warning to the Islamabad administration for the eradication of bonded labour at brick kilns. IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah warned the chief commissioner and capital police chief in the order issued on Wednesday. The court also directed the administration to forward a copy to the interior secretary.

During the hearing, the bonded labour commission members, Adnan Haider Randhawa and Danyal Hasan, appeared before the single-member bench while Khurram Hashmi represented the owners of brick kilns in the federal capital while Islamabad Labour Officer Ghani Muhammad and Sub-Inspector Manzoor also appeared before the court.

The court maintained that the interior ministry secretary would be summoned if the orders were not implemented. Randhawa stated that the poor are provided with loans and their children are forced into labour.

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The counsel of brick kilns' owners said that the business would shut down if they stopped these giving loans. Minahllah asked if they were making people their slaves, adding that the owners should go somewhere else if their business cannot run without giving loans.

The counsel argued that in Punjab, it was allowed under the law to lend up to Rs50,000 in loans. At this, the chief justice said that it is against the orders of the Supreme Court (SC) if such law exists in Punjab.

The court summoned a report and adjourned the hearing until May 17.

Previously, Justice Minallah had said it was better if the commission also recorded the stance of the brick kiln owners. The counsel had said that they were also against bonded labour, stating that the commission compiled the report without listening to them and asserted that there was no case of bonded labour in Islamabad.

In February, the commission set up on forced labour had shared a report spread over 71 pages to the court. The report stated that bondage by virtue of debt is a form of modern slavery. All labourers are free and well within their rights to discontinue their jobs at brick kilns at any time, the court observed.

Minallah had remarked that the loan given to the labourers against bondage is illegal and the workers are not obligated to pay it off. He maintained that the practice of debt bondage is in strict violation of the SC’s orders. He reiterated that a message should be conveyed to every labourer that he is not a slave, but a free citizen of the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22^nd, 2021.