May 26, 2006	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 27, 1427

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

PESHAWAR, May 25: Thousands of families, mostly Afghan, are being forced to work for longer hours on meagre wages by owners of brick kilns in violation of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act of 1992.

“About 18,000 people are working in 275 brick kilns on the outskirts of the city. Most of them are forced to work as bonded labour, a system outlawed by the Supreme Court and the Federal Shariat Court,” said an office-bearer of the NWFP Brick Kiln Labour Union.

According to him, the apex court gave a verdict in 1988, which was upheld by the Federal Shariat Court in 2005, banning the system. It observed that all labourers should have direct dealings with owners.

He said the court had made it clear that payments made to labourers should neither be recoverable or adjustable but the practice of selling labourers continued unabated.

“The system under which labourers receive money in advance from their employers make them salves for the rest of their lives. They cannot do anything, except what their employers want them to do,” said a leader of the union.

He said labourers, including those under 18 years of age, lived in mud-houses located inside their respective outlets and had no basic facilities such as health, education, sanitation and electricity. A worker is paid Rs220 for making 1,000 bricks, which takes about 24 hours.

“I and my wife started working here some 15 years ago when we came from the Paktia province of Afghanistan. We continued taking loans from owners and the amount has now reached Rs200,000, which we cannot pay back,” said Noor Gul Khan, 55, whose five children also work with him now.

It was an unending ordeal as thousands of families were living in despair and poverty, said Abdul Latif, secretary for the NWFP Brick Kiln Labour Union.

He said that under the “Jamadari” system, owners of brick kilns paid heavy loans to labourers. Later, he said, the labourers were handed over to other kiln owners while their wages were received by their first owners.

The Supreme Court had observed that provincial governments should ensure that brick kiln workers, whose number is said to be about two million in the country, were not subjected to unlawful detentions or other means of exploitation. However, the provincial governments are yet to establish vigilance committees under district nazims to oversee working in the brick kiln industry.