PAKISTAN:domestic labour

1. THE PROBLEM

A weak economy, the deteriorating security situation and rule of law,⁵ and a growing population⁶ have all contributed to an increase in reports of modern slavery, particularly of children and bonded labourers in Pakistan.⁷ Poverty and illiteracy are severe,⁸ both of which make people, especially children, vulnerable to various forms of modern slavery. Modern slavery occurs in Pakistan in primary industries, manufacturing, commercial sexual exploitation, forced begging and domestic servitude.

THE BRICK MAKING INDUSTRY HAS A PARTICULARLY HIGH LEVEL OF BONDED LABOURERS, EXPLOITING NOT ONLY VULNERABLE CHILDREN, BUT ALSO TRADITIONAL ‘LOW-CASTE’ FAMILY LABOURERS

Bonded labour is the greatest problem in Pakistan. The Asian Development Bank estimates that 1.8 million people⁹ are bonded labourers, though many NGOs place the estimate much higher.¹⁰ Bonded labour affects men, women and children largely from rural areas who travel to cities to find work, and has been reported in many industries, primarily brick kilns,¹¹ but also in agriculture, fisheries and mining. Debt bondage is a significant problem, particularly in the Sindh and Punjab provinces. Particularly vulnerable to exploitation are the 1.6 million Afghan refugees who largely work in the informal economy.¹² The brick making industry has a particularly high level of bonded labourers, exploiting not only vulnerable children, but also traditional ‘low-caste’ family labourers. Unofficial sources claim that Punjab has as many as 5,000 kilns.¹³

Many adult Pakistani men and women migrate voluntarily to the Gulf states, Iran, Turkey, South Africa, Uganda, Maldives, Greece and other European countries for low skilled employment such as domestic work, driving or construction work.¹⁴ Many migrants fall victim to fraudulent recruiting practices by illegal labour agents: coercion, non-payment of wages, withholding of passports and physical abuse.

There are reports of children subjected to forced labour, begging¹⁵ and sexual exploitation in Pakistan, and forcible recruitment into extremist and non-state militant groups where they suffer physical, sexual and psychological abuse.¹⁶ There are reports of child sex trafficking between Iran and Pakistan. High levels of child labour exist in Pakistan.¹⁷ The Federal Bureau of Statistics estimates 3.8 million children between the ages of five and 14 are working in Pakistan.¹⁸

Organ trafficking is a problem: in mid 2011 there were reportedly a total of 42 illegal kidney transplant facilities in the country, 14 of which are in Punjab.¹⁹

NOTABLE ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM

THERE ARE HIGH RATES OF FORCED MARRIAGE OF WOMEN AND GIRLS

Cultural practices play a significant role in modern slavery in Pakistan. Individuals belonging to lower kinship groups among Muslims and scheduled castes among Hindus are particularly vulnerable. Additionally, Vaani and Swara are still practiced.²⁰ These practices are methods of settling blood feuds between clans by forcing a young girl to marry a man from the enemy clan. Attributable to this, there are high rates of forced marriage of women and girls.

The Child Marriages Restraint Act 1929 states the legal marriageable age of females as 16, two years younger than the international minimum. Males cannot legally be married until 18, highlighting obvious gender discrimination. Shariah law however uses puberty as a criterion for marriage and does not specify any age. This conflicts with provisions of the Child Marriages Restraint Act making the law hard to implement and therefore being largely ineffective as prevalence of child marriage persists.²¹

2. WHAT IS THE GOVERNMENT DOING ABOUT IT?

PAKISTAN	Ratified
Slavery Convention	Yes
Supplementary Slavery Convention	Yes
UN Trafficking Protocol	No
Forced Labour Convention	Yes
Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention	Yes
CRC Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children	Yes
Domestic Work Convention	No

Government efforts to address modern slavery in Pakistan are poorly coordinated and executed. There are still large gaps in rules and regulations and no rehabilitation programmes for people affected by modern slavery seem to be in place.

Pakistan has ratified several key treaties on modern slavery but not the UN Trafficking Protocol or the Domestic Work Convention.

The budget allocated by the Government of Pakistan to respond to modern slavery is not known. The responsibility for labour inspections sits with provincial governments since devolution of central responsibility in 2010, and the mandate of labour inspectorates differs from province to province under local laws. There is a lack of clarity in available information about the status of this process, and how much responsibility provincial governments have taken for anti-slavery initiatives. Generally poor labour conditions, a lack of enforcement of labour laws and standards, and high levels of corruption persist. A lack of adequate labour inspection machinery was identified as a key reason by the ILO Committee of Experts in 2012 on its observations on Convention 29 as to why bonded labourers were not being identified and released.

Pakistan has a National Action Plan for Combating Human Trafficking, developed by the Ministry of Interior, to guide the country’s responses to modern slavery. The Federal Investigative Agency (FIA) hosts an anti-trafficking unit, although this unit’s budget, capacity and level of training are unclear. It also appears that the FIA is primarily concerned with transnational trafficking and does not focus on slavery of Pakistani nationals.

The criminalisation of modern slavery in Pakistan occurs through a complex framework of several legislative and regulatory mechanisms. It does not appear that there is an effective coordinating mechanism for the Government’s multiple responses to modern slavery. Slavery is prohibited in Pakistan’s Constitution. Some forms of modern slavery are criminalised in the Pakistan Penal code but significant gaps remain. Transnational trafficking, but not domestic trafficking, is criminalised under the Prevention and Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance 2002 (PACHTO). While prosecutions and convictions under this Ordinance have been reported by the Government, it is not clear if these convictions are for irregular migration (also cover by this Ordinance) or modern slavery situations.²²

PAKISTAN HAS YET TO SECURE A CONVICTION UNDER THE FORCED LABOUR LAWS, DESPITE THEIR HAVING BEEN IN PLACE FOR NEARLY 20 YEARS

The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) (BLSA) Act of 1992 and the corresponding BLSA Rules of 1995 prohibit and punish bonded labour and provide a mandate for some services to victims. Under the devolution process, federal laws apply to the provinces until provincial laws are enacted. However, it is reported that the Punjab is the only province to have enacted laws on bonded labour. It is also reported that Pakistan has yet to secure a conviction under the forced labour laws, despite them being in place for nearly 20 years.²³

The Government has started a social protection programme for the poorest segment of the population which is likely to affect modern slavery in the country. The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) was initiated by the Government of Pakistan in 2008 as an unconditional cash transfer targeted to women in poor households. BISP represents a major scaling up of social protection systems in Pakistan with a three-fold increase in budgetary outlay in this area in its first year. It currently claims to reach 5 million beneficiaries or up to a fifth of all households. Its use of the census method in beneficiary identification through a poverty scorecard survey ensures that the poorest are targeted. Due to the intersection between the poorest households and people vulnerable to debt bondage BISP is likely playing a part in the reduction of modern slavery in the country.

In response to reports of organ trafficking, the Government enacted the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissue Act 2010, which provides penalties of up to 10 years in jail. The Ministry of Health has been criticised for not implementing the law strongly enough, with a newspaper source stating that 450 cases of organ trade have occurred in Punjab villages since March 2010 when the law was enacted.²⁴

Adequate focus on victim identification and assistance is severely lacking in Pakistan and data about victims is scarce. While modern slavery is widespread, community knowledge of labour rights and the rights of victims of exploitative labour in Pakistan is low.

No protections for the privacy and security of victim-witnesses exist in Pakistani law. The PACHTO makes provision for safe repatriation assistance and confers some temporary immigration rights on victims whose repatriation is not immediately possible, however it is unclear how these rights are applied in practice. The 2013 US TIP Report cited comments of local NGOs to the effect that trafficking victims were sometimes criminalised for offences related to their trafficking, and victims of debt bondage who sought the help of police were sometimes returned to their places of work as “runaways.”²⁵

There is neither a mechanism to coordinate action among provinces nor a national referral mechanism. There is no effective coordination between government actors and NGOs. Some coordination has been achieved though ILO efforts to engage NGOs on the issue of bonded labour. There is no institutional mechanism for data collection and research. The national Government sporadically publishes information on bonded labour and human trafficking. Little information about state budgetary allocations is available, and it is impossible on available information to get an idea of the size of the resources allocated to the issue country-wide.

NOTABLE ASPECTS OF THE RESPONSE

Notwithstanding these challenges, some positive developments have taken place in recent years. Training of judges and labour inspectors on bonded labour and internal trafficking has been conducted in the last year by the ILO. Initiatives run jointly by the Government and the ILO in the brick kiln sector have resulted in the Elimination of Bonded Labour in Brick Kilns programme. Such initiatives have been directed at outreach to communities in which brick kiln labour is common, and have focused on education, microcredit schemes, and registration of sector workers with government.

Community welfare attachés have been established in major destination countries for Pakistani migrant workers including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya and the UK. Various NGOs work to assist Pakistanis overseas. In addition, a February 2013 draft of the National Policy for Overseas Pakistanis calls for embassies to take a greater role in protecting Pakistani workers abroad. The Foreign Service Agreement (FSA) procedure provides some checks and balances on overseas recruitment, but is not used by the majority of emigrants.

Women in Pakistan face significant discrimination and high levels of violence (with proportions as high as four in five women having faced some sort of domestic abuse). The Prevention of Anti-Women Practices Bill, that prohibits forced marriages, was passed in 2011, however no information is available in relation to the law’s enforcement, and there is still much work to do in this regard.

3. WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN?

Pakistan should:

• Ratify and implement the UN Trafficking Protocol.
• Ensure that national laws clearly criminalise all forms of modern slavery, and treat this issue separately to irregular migration and people smuggling.
• Publish an annual report on implementation and progress under the National Action Plan for Combating Human Trafficking, including clear data on budget expenditure, and criminal justice statistics on transnational trafficking but also other prevalent forms of modern slavery, such as debt bondage and forced marriage offences.
• Undertake national prevalence estimates on modern slavery, with a specific focus not only on transnational cases but also debt bondage and forced marriage situations.
• Provide budgets to provincial governments to develop and execute action plans, and require reporting on progress.
• Establish a mechanism for coordination across all forms of modern slavery, between government and civil society working on these issues.
• Strengthen efforts to identify and punish those who facilitate and profit from modern slavery, whether this is owners of brick kilns, organisers of physical markets in which victims are sold, or brokers of forced marriages.
• Increase measures to prevent modern slavery, including conducting national community awareness and mobilisation campaigns in local languages, with a particular focus on debt bondage and forced marriage.
• Increase efforts to actively identify and assist victims, strengthen protections for victims of modern slavery and ensure that they are not criminalised, or detained in “women’s shelters.”²⁶
• Continue efforts to raise the status of women and girls. In particular, it should consider measures to reduce the incidence of forced and child marriage.
• Find ways to allow the public to more rapidly and publicly report corruption and complicity of government officials in modern slavery.
• Continue efforts directed at addressing the underlying causes of modern slavery – such as poverty, illiteracy, underemployment, violence against women, discrimination and social exclusion.
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