19 May 2004	Wednesday	28 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

ISLAMABAD, May 18: Bonded labour exists in the mining sector of Pakistan as an instituted system of recruitment in conformity with its 'classic' mode of debt bondage, a research study conducted by a renowned scholar says.

The mediaeval practices of extraction of mineral resources continue uninterrupted based on the stark exploitation of human misery without any serious effort to mitigate it ever since the foreign rulers enacted the Mines Act 1923.

That Act, recalls Ahmed Salim in his research conducted as part of the "Rapid assessment of bonded labour in Pakistan" series commissioned by Bonded Labour Research Forum in collaboration with the ILO and the ministry of labour, had excluded employment of children under-13, instituted weekly holiday and limited weekly working hours.

The only change since then has been the direct management by the government of mines in some areas and the establishment in 1970s of Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation (PMDC), which changed the working conditions of miners for the better in areas under its control.

Of late, however, the PMDC too has fallen back to the old rut of leasing out mines and subjection of miners to the exploitative Peshgi (advance) system, which is the pillar of debt bondage in the privately managed mines.

Pakistan is endowed with significant mineral resources, including the world's second largest reservoir of salt in Khewra (Punjab). Apart from substantial deposits of coal, over 50 minerals, including marble, chromites, fluorite, sulphur and basalt, are being extracted albeit on a small scale.

For his research conducted over 35 days in 2002, Mr Salim visited 50 mines in all the four provinces and interviewed over a hundred workers and more than a dozen mine-owners and their agents amidst threats and offers of "incentives" from the latter and cynical attitude of government functionaries.

While elaborate provisions exist in the law for making mining operations safe, these laws are openly flouted. Moreover, the penalties for infringements are so low that mine-owners prefer to pay them rather than invest in implementing the safety regulations.

Apart from the mines operated by government or industrial enterprises, most private coalmines still use the conventional manual system of haulage. The resulting statistics on occupational accidents in the mining sector are "alarming": on average more than 100 people lose their lives annually and a similar number are disabled.

In 1999, in Punjab, out of a mining labour force of approximately 40,000, as many as 32 were killed and 20 seriously injured. In Sindh, out of a labour force of 10,000, 25 were killed and 10 seriously injured.

In Balochistan, out of 32,000, 61 were killed and 16 seriously injured, while in NWFP, with a labour force of 32,000, 19 were killed and four injured. Although dispensaries were seen near mines in Choa Saidan Shah, Dandot, Khushab and Makerwal, doctors were a rarity and there existed no system of regular medical check-up of the workers.

The late Omar Asghar Khan took up the issue seriously. But since his untimely death, no further progress has been made, the study said.