| May 22, 2005 | Sunday | Rabi-us-Sani 13, 1426 |
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Tackling bonded labour
Indecent exposure
PRESIDENT Pervez Musharraf’s statement that now is the time for Pakistan and India to solve their disputes, including the Kashmir dispute, is timely. All peace-loving people on both sides of the border would endorse his views. It is now widely recognized that the people of the two countries are convinced that they stand to benefit if they give up the option of war. Even Kashmir, the intractable dispute, now appears to be within the possibility of a solution — later if not sooner. The factors the president has recounted for the present rapprochement are, to a large extent, correct. Be it the force of public opinion or the rapport between the present leaders of Pakistan and India, the fact is that the time has come to give up the military option and adopt reconciliation as the sensible path to conflict resolution. With the two countries armed with nuclear weapons, a war can only lead to mutual devastation.
As has been demonstrated by the two sides, peaceful conflict resolution calls for compromises and a process of mutual give-and-take in a spirit of flexibility and realism. This approach has made it possible for them to adopt a number of confidence-building measures, the most dramatic being the inauguration of the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus service, which did its fourth run this week. More steps are in the offing. Two new bus services — between Lahore and Amritsar and Amritsar and Nankana Sahib — should be launched in two or months or so. The Munabao-Khokhrapar rail link is expected to take off before the year ends. The consulates of the two countries in Mumbai and Karachi should open in the next six months. On May 25 talks will begin on Siachen and it is quite likely that the two sides will decide to revive the 1989 agreement between them on the withdrawal of troops from the frontline in the highest and most expensive war theatre in the world. Meanwhile, India and Pakistan have been conducting a dialogue on trade which is expected to jump to 10 billion dollars per annum in the next five years from the present five million dollars. The differences over the Baglihar dam have been taken up and a neutral expert should be looking into the matter.
With prospects for further progress being quite bright, one wonders why the president and, a day earlier, the foreign minister had felt forced to sound a cautious note. This may have to do with active lobbying by traditionalists who still believe in using violence and terror to impose their viewpoint on Kashmir. They are not simplistic in their notions and ideas but are wholly out of step with the realities of life in the changed conditions of today. President Musharraf’s stand on Kashmir has been rational and in the interest of the Kashmiris, India and Pakistan. Rather than seeking the redrawing of boundaries (as Pakistan has been demanding), or formalizing the Line of Control as the boundary (as India has been insisting on), he has suggested a policy that will make borders irrelevant (that is possible by facilitating easy movement of people across the LoC). Since both India and Pakistan are inclined to draw Kashmiris from both sides into the dialogue, the solution that is worked out should have the added advantage of being acceptable to the people of Kashmir.
A RECENTLY released International Labour Organization report on bonded labour in Pakistan offers scathing criticism of the practices prevalent in many parts of Punjab and Sindh. Based on a survey entailing interviews with some 1,000 freed bonded labourers, the report says bonded women workers in the agriculture sector in Sindh and those in the brickkiln sector in Punjab are at a high risk of physical and sexual abuse. Landlords and brick-kiln owners routinely advance loans at compound interest rates to new hires who are then made to toil for years to pay back the loan. The prevalence of extremely low wages in the two sectors also makes it hard for labourers to pay back their debts. The report identifies rampant illiteracy among poor workers as one of the critical factors leading to bonded labour. This is because labourers are unable to negotiate fairer loan terms with their lenders and cannot vet the written agreement before sealing it with a thumb impression. Many are thus forced into virtual bondage, made to work long hours and beaten up on refusal to permit their women to extend sexual gratification to their employers or to meet other extraneous demands. The absence of vigilance on the part of the labour department and denial of access to justice only heighten the bonded labourers’ misery. The government has been aware of the abuse and its expanding scale over the years, but little has been done to eliminate it.
Surely, Pakistan is not the only Third World country where bonded labour of the kind has reached an alarming level. The ILO has done enough research on the subject and developed effective strategies to help governments tackle the problem. The government of Pakistan would do well to institute one such programme and start implementing it with the help of non-governmental agencies. To start with, small loans on nominal or interest-free basis should be made available to landless peasants and labourers, besides streamlining the labour department’s inspectorate system to check malpractices by landlords and brick-kiln owners. It is equally important to bring a number of existing exploiters to justice to deter others from perpetuating bonded labour.
FRIDAY’S photographs of Saddam Hussein in his cell in Iraq, especially one showing him in his underpants, splashed across the London-based tabloid newspaper The Sun have sparked a new controversy over whether their publication constitutes a breach of his privacy and the violation of rights. There is also concern over whether the images would have a worsening effect on the Iraqi insurgency and make things more difficult for the American government already under heavy fire for its inability to deal with the deteriorating situation in Iraq. There is also the question of the propriety of the paper’s decision to print such photographs with equally derogatory captions accompanying them. Officials believe that these photographs were taken when Mr Hussein was deemed a prisoner of war in US custody. In that capacity he was entitled to certain rights under the Geneva Conventions, one of which is “forbidding exposing captives to ‘public curiosity,’ as by releasing humiliating photographs”. US officials plan to hold an investigation into the leakage while Mr Hussein’s lawyers intend to take legal action. It is clear, however, that the aim of the leak was to humiliate the former Iraqi president and break the morale of the Iraqi insurgents.
This episode is another in a long line of abuses and excesses committed by the American occupation forces, the foremost being the shocking disclosure of the torture and human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, followed by recent revelations about the atrocities at an air base in Bagram. All these contributed to a rise in anti-American sentiment around the world. To win its ‘war on terror’, the Americans will have to convince the Muslims that it is committed to fighting the battle in a judicious manner and to hold its own men and women accountable for the crimes they commit.