Editorial: Modern Slavery, Environmental Exploitation

Issue No : 81  May - August 2012

Why, hundreds of years after it was legally abolished, does slavery persist? Bonded labour, or debt bondage, is perhaps the least known form of slavery today, and yet it is the most commonly used method of enslaving people.

People turn into bonded labour when their labour is demanded as means of repayment for a debt. It characterised by ‘creditor-debtor’ relationship that labourer passes on to their family member. Bonded labours are trapped into working for effectively no pay, often for restless working hours, seven days a week; it’s often involves the whole family member and endures from generation to generation. There is no doubt, the value of their work is always far greater than the money they borrowed.

The ILO estimates that in the Asia-Pacific region today a minimum 11.7 million are in forced/bonded labour. However, the occurrence of bonded labour is much greater than generally estimated, and it may be increasing in various forms and in specific contexts. In India, for example, bonded labour has not been purely a matter of economic, but also reinforced by custom or coercion in many sectors including agricultural, silk, mining, and brick kiln industries.

In Nepal, although bonded labour (known as Kamaiya, meaning forced labour and forced prostitution due to debt) has also been banned under the law, but the system has evolved in various forms (such as Haliya in western part of the country) where the rehabilitation of the kamaiyas has been erratic. In Pakistan, systematic enslavement of many generations of people has also been alarmingly widespread. Bonded labour was legally abolished everywhere, yet many governments fail to enforce their own laws against its practice.

Many of bonded labours have been held for generations, paying off a supposed ‘loan’ taken out by their grandparents. Ashraf, a bonded labour being enslaved near Lahore in Pakistan in brick kiln factory has said: "There is no way out. How do I get out from here? I have no way out of this. My grandfather died here, my father has grown old here, and I am growing old too. We are slaves, we are not free." (Slavery: A 21st Century Evil, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/slaverya21stcenturyevil/2011/10/2011...).

Ashraf also mentioned that he and his fellows labour normally sleep only two hours every day to continue working; nobody will be able to escape as guards are watching from every spots. Like many other bonded labours, he gave his kidney to his employer for organ trade/trafficking which agreed as part of his repayment to a supposed ‘loan’. But he and his family remain enslaved in the ‘camp’.

The main feature of current issue of Asian Labour Update (ALU) discusses the practice of bonded labour in fishing industry. ILO estimates not less than 27 million people work in capture fisheries globally, and commercial fishing takes place in some of the world’s most difficult to regulate places including Asia. By taking the story of Indonesian fishing labourers working in Korean vessels that operate in New Zealand’s sea, the article describes many of bonded labours from Indonesia have been severely exploited and enslaved: they have exposed to verbal, physical and sexual abuse, forced to work 16 hour a day for monthly wages as little as US$ 212 and these wages have not been paid for two years. The workers put up land certificates which held by their employers to secure their jobs on the boat. They also paid off recruitment agents’ fees incrementally from their wages; they can be fined up to US$ 10.000 for leaving their contracts, even if fleeing abuse. They become bonded labour in the ocean.

On the other hand, the Korean vessels have also been exploiting and polluting the ocean. Despite the overfishing that has caused environmental disaster, they often throw the catches overboard to provide space for higher value ones, which researchers estimated as much as 40 to 50 per cent of the catch. There is a clear need for a structural and serious response to these slavery as well as environmental exploitation in the fishing supply chain. Making bonded labour as modern slavery a history requires authentic commitment from governments to adhere to their constitutional ban of its practices, and of course democratic control from the society. 

The second feature of the ALU examines and uncovers the notion of green economy and green jobs; it is a cover-up tool for neoliberal globalization, a mantra that nothing less than the overhauling of a system that is driven by the profit motive. Green economy and green jobs are excuse for not dealing with the reality that neoliberal globalization has failed. This article argues that green jobs programmes have been proved that they are not really contributing to decent work. For example, recycle industry which in principle it is viewed as green, are especially notorious for exploiting cheap, informal labour to squeeze out high rates of return from what are generally considered to be one of the most hazardous occupations.

The third feature analyses Fukushima and nuclear disaster. It argues that Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and government should take the responsibility to the impacts of the disaster, where both TEPCO and the government would likely shift the burden to the consumers by raising its electricity rates and pay the cost from people’ taxes. TEPCO and government should compensate the victims and cautiously decontaminate piles of contaminated soils, not only in Fukushima but also in Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture. The article suggests how to make TEPCO completely pay compensation, come up with the money from bank and stockholders instead of taxes, dismantle the community of people who profit from nuclear power, and orient Japan toward a nuclear phase-out.