LAHORE: A meeting was organised by the Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF) where key stakeholders discussed ‘flaws and loopholes’ of the Punjab Prohibition of Child Labour at Brick Kilns Ordinance 2016. Stakeholders included labour activists, parliamentarians and media. Kiln workers were also present.

Participants, in the presence of Minister Begum Zakia Shahnawaz and Labour Secretary Nawazish Ali pointed out that although the Punjab government had taken a commendable step forward in bringing about this law, lacunae contradicted the message. One of the criticisms was that the law seemed to make attempts to legalise the debt bondage or `peshgi’ system rather than to abolish it.

IA Rehman from HRCP summarized the entire discussion by noting that the bill was in three parts. The first part, he said, concerned with the child’s age. He said although the government’s efforts in banning child labour at brick kilns was laudable to say the least, the age of the child was only 14 years, and Rehman said that technically anyone under the age of 18 would be doing child labour. He said that children who were brought up in such situations where bonded labour was taking place would grow with ideas of slavery and bondage in their minds and this was detrimental. These children should be removed from the kiln areas.

Earlier Mahar Safdar Ali from BLLF also said that the children were inevitably found at the brick kilns because they lived in the very same places where their families worked, but brick making must be declared a formal industry and it was the employers’ responsibility to see that children did not come to the work area.

The next section of the law, according to IA Rehman, was the matter of the contract given to the kiln workers. This he applauded because he said that in a country where these workers were never registered and that no owner accepts the real number of the workers he has on his kiln, a contract would serve as a positive step forward.

The third section in the bill was the issue that the contract would include amount of peshgi, which everyone unanimously declared to be contradictory to the Abolition of the Bonded Labour Act of 1992. The record of the money owed lies with the owner, and this is often manipulated and increased.

Parliamentarian Saadia Sohail said that the bill did not discuss any aspects of health problems which was an integral issue not just for the children but also for the adults who worked there.

Zakia Shahnawaz said a provincial committee on eradication of bonded labour headed by MPA Mian Rafiq was looking into the matter and would suggest changes to improve the law.

She said under the recently launched initiative 92,000 had been enrolled in schools and 32,000 will be enrolled within the next 10 days. The government, she said, was also aware of the financial issues of brick kiln workers and has, therefore, facilitated them by providing a monthly stipend of Rs2000 per child enrolled in schools. The child would be given an extra Rs1000 per month.The issue of CNICs came up and everyone agreed that the biggest problem at the moment was the lack of identity and the fact that the labourers could not receive any health or housing benefits as a result. They wanted the labour secretary to put in a word to Nadra for fast processing of the brick kiln labourers ID cards.

It was observed that though the government of Punjab had promulgated the said ordinance with an intention to eradicate child labour at brick kilns, the strong lobby of kiln owners was pressurizing it to get certain unjustified provisions included in it on their behest, before it was passed by the legislature as an act.

The participants demanded fixing the age limit to at least 16 years, payment of minimum wage to brick kiln workers, removal of the term “occupier” for brick kiln owner, and the terming of peshgi or advance illegal instead of fixing limits.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2016