Modern slavery

For those who imagined slavery was a thing of the past, think again — it is alive and well and living in Pakistan. Pakistan ranks sixth on the second edition of the 2014 Global Slavery Index, and third-highest in terms of the proportion of the population that is enslaved. Around two million Pakistanis or 1.13 per cent of the population, and particularly women, children and bonded labourers, are thought to be enslaved. It is worth reminding ourselves exactly how modern slavery is defined: “one person possessing or controlling another person in such a way as to significantly deprive that person of their individual liberty, with the intention of exploiting that person through their use, management, profit, transfer or disposal”. Within those 36 words is encapsulated untold human misery. The global figure for those enslaved is around 35.8 million and is higher than was originally estimated.

Debt-bondage is the most common form of slavery in Pakistan. There are regular reports from Sindh and Punjab of enslaved people being found — some of them enslaved with their families for generations — in agriculture, the carpet and weaving industries and the brick kilns. A recent report on the brick kilns asserts that of the 4.5 million employed making bricks nationally, the majority were bonded labourers — what amounts to an entire industry powered by slaves. The kilns fall within the provincial labour departments under the Eighteenth Amendment, and they are not a priority anywhere. Half of the 10,500 kilns in Punjab are unregistered. Children work from toddler-hood, they are rarely educated, there is little or no health provision and the diet is barely enough to sustain. Women and children are physically and sexually abused and there is no single national body to organise a coordinated response to slavery in 21^st century Pakistan. Local NGOs have noted a rise in the numbers of children, boys and girls, being sold into prostitution by their parents as a result of grinding poverty. India outstrips Pakistan with over 14 million slaves but that is cold comfort. Expect no early change. Expect no sense of national shame, either.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 22^nd, 2014.

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