1: Definition
Form Macmillan dictionary: “Hard physical work that someone is forced to do”
From Google:
1:
“Work which one is compelled to perform against one's will, especially in a
condition of
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2:
“The use of labor that is compelled to work, subject to physical punishment if
it does not”
From Dictionary by FARLEX:
“Un-free labour is a
generic or collective term for those work relations, especially in modern or
early modern history, in which people are employed against their will by the
threat of destitution, detention, violence (including death), or other extreme
hardship to themselves, or to members of their families. Many of these forms of
work may be covered by the term forced
labour, although the latter term tends to imply forms based on violence.”
{Un-free labour
includes all forms of slavery, and related institutions}
From Longman dictionary:
“When prisoners or
slaves are forced to do very hard physical work”
2: Payment for un-free labour:
If payment occurs, it
may be in one or more of the following forms:
a)
The payment does
not exceed subsistence or barely exceeds it;
b)
The payment is
in goods which are not desirable or cannot be exchanged or are difficult to
exchange; or
c)
The payment
wholly or mostly consists of cancellation of a debt or liability that was
itself coerced, or belongs to someone else.
Forced labour is often
more easily instituted and enforced on migrant workers, who have travelled far
from their homelands and who are easily identified because of their physical,
ethnic, or cultural differences from the general population, since they are
unable or unlikely to report their conditions to the authorities.
According to the labour
theory of value, under capitalism, workers never keep all of the wealth they
create, as some of it goes to the profit of capitalists.
3: Examples of un-free or forced labour
Slavery:
The best-known form of
un-free or forced labour is chattel slavery,
In which individual
workers are legally owned throughout their lives, and may be bought, sold or
otherwise exchanged by owners, while never or rarely receiving any personal
benefit from their labour.
The term slavery is
often applied to situations, which are closely-related forms of un-free labour,
such as debt slavery or debt-bondage etc.
In late 16th century
Japan, "un-free labour" or slavery was officially banned.
Bonded labour:
A more common form in
modern society is bonded labour,
Under which workers
sign contracts to work for a specific period of time, for which they are paid
only with accommodation and sustenance, or these essentials in addition to
limited benefits such as cancellation of a debt, or transportation to a desired
country etc.
Penal labour:
Convict or prison
labour is another classic form of un-free labour.
The forced labour of
convicts has often been regarded with lack of sympathy, because of the social
stigma attached to people regarded as "common criminals".
Trafficking:
Trafficking is a term
to define the recruiting, obtaining and transportation of a person by use of
force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjecting them to involuntary
acts, such as acts related to commercial sexual exploitation (including forced
prostitution) or involuntary labour etc.
Child labour:
The term "child
labour" is often defined as work that deprives children of their
childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical
and mental development.
It refers to work that:
a)
is mentally,
physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and
b)
interferes with
their schooling by:
c)
depriving them
of the opportunity to attend school;
d)
obliging them to
leave school prematurely; or
e)
requiring them
to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work
4: The present situation, because of forced labour
The International
Labour Organization estimates that:
a)
At least 12.3
million people are victims of forced labour
b)
More than 2.4
million have been trafficked
c)
9.8 million are
exploited by private agents
d)
2.5 million are
forced to work by the state or by rebel military groups
5: Worst Forms of Child Labour Data in Pakistan
Total Child Labour
For the year 2000, the
ILO projects that there will be 2,993,000 economically active children,
1,158,000 girls and 1,835,000 boys between the ages of 10-14, representing
15.39% of this age group.
2,065,000 children
between 10-14 years and 4,319,000 between 15-19 years are economically active.
There are estimated to
be 15 million child labourers in Pakistan.
The number of child
workers under 15 years, are estimated to be not less than 8 million.
Child Slavery
Of 20 million bonded
labourers, 7.5 million are children.
The ILO report on
Pakistan indicates approximately 50,000 children working as bonded labourers in
the carpet sector.
Child Trafficking
Over the last decade,
200,000 Bangladeshi girls were lured under false circumstances and sold into
the sex industry in nations including Pakistan, India and the Middle East.
Lawyers for Human
Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA) of Pakistan have reported that more than 19,000
boys from the region, ranging in age from two to 11 years old, have been
trafficked as camel jockeys to the Middle East- a trade that can cost them
their lives.
Children in Crime
There are a total of
4,000 children in jails.
6: Forced labour in Africa
The ILO estimate of the
number of victims of forced labour in sub-Saharan Africa is 660,000. In this
region, the figure reflects the stubborn survival of traditional forms of
servitude, but also relates to extreme poverty, a high incidence of child
labour, and a context of severe political violence. Where armed conflicts and
ethnic tensions have flared, nations have been confronted with the forced
recruitment of child soldiers, abductions, and enslavement of whole segments of
their population.
7: For the prohibition of forced labour many acts,
conventions, laws are passed, like as follows:
(1) Article 11of constitution for Slavery, forced
labour, etc., prohibited
Article 11:
Slavery, forced labour,
etc., prohibited.
(1) Slavery is
non-existent and forbidden and no law shall permit or facilitate its introduction
into Pakistan in any form.
(2) All forms of forced
labour and traffic in human beings are prohibited.
(3) No child below the
age of Fourteen years shall be engaged in any factory or mine or any other
hazardous employment.
(4) Nothing in this
Article shall be deemed to affect compulsory service.
(a) By any person
undergoing punishment for an offence against any law, or
(b) Required by any law
for public purpose.
Provided that no
compulsory service shall be of a cruel nature, or incompatible with human
dignity
(2) Forced Labour Convention 1930
The Convention concerning Forced or
Compulsory Labour was adopted in Geneva on 28 June 1930 and came into force on
1st May 1932.
It is administered by
the International Organization of Labour.
{ILO}
ILO Convention 29
Forced Labour Convention, 1930
The General Conference
of the International Labour Organization,
Having been convened at
Geneva by the Governing Body of the International Labour Office, and having met
in its Fourteenth Session on 10 June 1930, and
Having decided upon the
adoption of certain proposals with regard to forced or compulsory labour, which
is included in the first item on the agenda of the Session, and
Having determined that
these proposals shall take the form of an international Convention,
Adopts this
twenty-eighth day of June of the year one thousand nine hundred and thirty the
following Convention, which may be cited as the Forced Labour Convention, 1930,
for ratification by the Members of the International Labour Organization in
accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the International Labour Organization;
Some of articles are as follows:
Article 1:
1. (1) Each Member of
the International Labour Organization which ratifies this Convention undertakes
to suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms within the
shortest possible period.
1. (2) With a view to
this complete suppression, recourse to forced or compulsory labour may be had,
during the transitional period, for public purposes only and as an exceptional
measure, subject to the conditions and guarantees hereinafter provided.
Article 2:
1. For the purposes of
this Convention the term forced or compulsory labour shall mean all work or
service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and
for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.
Article 3:
3. For the purposes of
this Convention the term competent
authority shall mean either an authority of the metropolitan country or the
highest central authority in the territory concerned.
Article 32:
(3) Nevertheless, this
Convention shall remain in force in its actual form and content for those
Members which have ratified it but have not ratified the revising convention.
(3) The Human Rights Act 1998:
The Human Rights Act
protects your human right not to be held in slavery or servitude.
The prohibition on
holding a person in slavery or servitude is absolute and can never be
justified.
The prohibition on
requiring a person to perform forced or compulsory labour does not include
lawful work required of prisoners or military service; work required during an
emergency or other work or service that forms part of normal civil obligations
(for example, jury service).
“A person is subjected
to forced labour when the person does not voluntarily consent to perform work
but does so because of threats made, either physical or psychological”.
For example in Article 4:
Prohibition on Slavery
and Forced Labour,
1. No one shall be held
in slavery or servitude.
2. No one shall be
required to perform forced or compulsory labour.
THERE ARE MANY MORE
ACTS OR CONVICTIONS ARE PRESENT FOR THE PROHIBITION OF FORCED LABOUR.
AND IN MY POINT OF VIEW,
IT SHOULD BE PROHIBTIED, BECAUSE IT IS TOTALLY AGAINST THE
HUMAN RIGHTS.
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