Pakistani activist honoured with Global Citizen award In New York

The activist is known for advocating compliance of the International Labour Organisation’s key labour standards in Pakistan, as well as campaigning for legal rights of the mistreated brick kiln workers and female domestic and home-based workers in the country.

She is a member of the Provincial Committee for Abolition of Bonded Labour Punjab and of the District Vigilance Committee in the 12th district of Pakistan.

Read: Teenager from Swat honoured with Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award in US

Recently, during his visit to Pakistan, photo blogger Brandon Stanton of Humans of New York coordinated with Fatima for the relief of bonded labour in Pakistan. HONY did a remarkable seven-photo series depicting the struggle of the female activist fighting against bonded labour.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/963694/pakistani-activist-honoured-with-global-citizen-award-in-ny/

Isn't 'bonded labour' just another name for slavery...!?



And mostly non Muslims and children being the victims on the Muslim oppressors!!!???

Tommy Monk wrote:Isn't 'bonded labour' just another name for slavery...!?



And mostly non Muslims and children being the victims on the Muslim oppressors!!!???

No it isnt! I wish you bothered reading the OP!!!!!

Really SM... either you are completely ignorant of the facts... or you are just plain lying!!!


If you don't know what you are talking about... then why are you trying to talk as if you do know what you are talking about!!!???


You are a liar!!!







Dalit Hindu minorities the main target

Bondage both in agriculture and in brick-kilns includes severe forms of oppression. This ranges from physical restraints upon the movement of the workers and their families to beatings and sexual abuse of female workers. Dalits and other low caste Hindus bear the brunt of these abuses because of their minority status. The multiple disempowerment of being poor, low caste or Dalit as well as non-Muslim are the main contributing factors to the oppressive conditions of bonded labour in Pakistan claims a PILER report(9).

Violations against sharecroppers are particularly acute in lower Sindh and in southern Punjab bordering India. The latter is also considered to be the main geographical area of severe oppression against brick-kiln workers and their families. PILER estimates that these sharecroppers will be subjected to increased excesses of bondage because landlords in recent times have been facing adverse economic pressures(10).

The sharecroppers often live in camps, where they are also subjected to incarceration, and some report of being shackled and raped. As with the general scenario, children are even more vulnerable than their adult counterparts. Children in brick kilns report of being beaten with sticks and whipped to the point of injury. They do not receive compensation for their work, and are also sometimes kept as insurance to prevent the escape of adult family members, reports Human Rights Watch(11).

http://idsn.org/key-issues/caste-based-slavery/caste-based-slavery-in-pakistan/

http://www.brandeis.edu/projects/fse/slavery/contemporary/essay-bonded-labor.html

http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Muslim_Statistics_-_Slavery

SEXY MAMA wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:Isn't 'bonded labour' just another name for slavery...!?



And mostly non Muslims and children being the victims on the Muslim oppressors!!!???

No it isnt! I wish you bothered reading the OP!!!!!

No it isn't?????


I wish you would do the right thing and stop lying for your evil 'religion'!!!!!!!!

Tommy please READ

LAHORE, 17 January 2008 (IRIN) - Twelve-year-old Salamat Ahmed works up to 14 hours a day in a brick factory in Sheikhupura, about 100km north of Lahore. His hands bear burn marks from placing bricks in the kiln.

"I have been doing this work since I was six. Even when I was younger, I helped my mother. We 'belong' to the brick kiln owner and cannot leave this place," Salamat told IRIN, before he was pulled away by his older brother, Karamat, who said: "We don't want any trouble."

Despite his arduous life, Salamat, who has never been to school, wears a big grin across his face. He dreams of becoming a cricket player, or riding his own motorcycle.

Salamat, his parents and three siblings, are among the 1.7 million bonded labourers that the International Labour Organization (ILO) says exist in Pakistan.

Despite laws banning bonded labour, including the Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act of 1992, forced labour, often through debt bondage, remains widespread.

"What happens is that employers, in this case the brick kiln owners, advance sums of money to the labourers to meet urgent needs. Because the wages paid to the labourers are so low, the loans cannot be paid back even over many years, and the workers cannot leave the kiln as they are indebted to the owners," said I.A. Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).

Over half a million bonded labourers are working at brick kilns, says a 2003 study by the Karachi-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), PILER (Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research). The study, carried out at the request of the ILO, concluded that nearly half these workers are women or children.



Photo: Kamila Hyat/IRIN
Of the country’s 6,000 brick kilns, the vast majority are in Pakistan’s populous Punjab
6,000 brick kilns

The report said family labour by children aged 10-14 producing unbaked bricks, and of male juveniles (14 -17 years) in other work groups, is a central part of work at the 6,000 or so brick kilns across the country, 5,000 of them in the Punjab.

When female children are not working at the kiln, they will be doing domestic chores, leaving other family members free to manufacture bricks. The advances families are able to get are most often larger when more members work at the kiln, and this promotes the use of children as a labour force.

Most children engaged at kilns do not go to school and have never regularly attended one.

"I sent my daughter to school for three months, but we need her help to make ends meet," said Wazir Khan, 32, a labourer at a brick kiln in the Batapur area of Lahore, close to the Indian border. Wazir and his family are Afghans, and are paid piece rates, i.e. depending on the number of unbaked bricks they can produce in a day.

With the help of his daughter, Azma, 10, and two sons, aged 8 and 7, Wazir and his wife make enough bricks to earn around US$50 a month.

"Any less, and we would starve," Wazir said.

Education

Over the past three or four years NGOs and social welfare organisations have persuaded brick kiln owners to set up small schools for children working for them.

More and more such schools are being set up, and several dozen are now operating, but the fact remains that most are inadequately housed in tiny rooms or sheds.

The standards of education they can offer are limited - and for the most part they depend for their survival entirely on the goodwill of their brick kiln owner.

Yet even these limited facilities offer children, who usually attend them for a few hours a day, some semblance of opportunity, some ray of hope. They also offer an escape from the risks and hardship of life at the kiln, where injuries while using sharp implements to carve out mud, or from the hot ovens, are not uncommon. In most cases, the labourers, including the children, have no access to even rudimentary first aid.

"We must work here because we are poor. But now I go to school and one day I will be an educated man who can do something else," says Dilawar, 12, who has worked at a kiln in Lahore, where his family is bonded, for three years.




So non Muslims huh?

Tommy Monk wrote:

SEXY MAMA wrote:

No it isnt! I wish you bothered reading the OP!!!!!

No it isn't?????


I wish you would do the right thing and stop lying for your evil 'religion'!!!!!!!!

I wish you grow the fuck up but we cant have everything we wish for.

They also kill Donkeys from overwork!

Did you even read my links?

nicko wrote:They also kill Donkeys from overwork!

There is a charity set up especially yo educate the poor families on how to look after their animals.

You should dontare.

I said mainly non Muslims were the victims... which is true!










Dalit Hindu minorities the main target

Bondage both in agriculture and in brick-kilns includes severe forms of oppression. This ranges from physical restraints upon the movement of the workers and their families to beatings and sexual abuse of female workers. Dalits and other low caste Hindus bear the brunt of these abuses because of their minority status. The multiple disempowerment of being poor, low caste or Dalit as well as non-Muslim are the main contributing factors to the oppressive conditions of bonded labour in Pakistan claims a PILER report(9).

Violations against sharecroppers are particularly acute in lower Sindh and in southern Punjab bordering India. The latter is also considered to be the main geographical area of severe oppression against brick-kiln workers and their families. PILER estimates that these sharecroppers will be subjected to increased excesses of bondage because landlords in recent times have been facing adverse economic pressures(10).

The sharecroppers often live in camps, where they are also subjected to incarceration, and some report of being shackled and raped. As with the general scenario, children are even more vulnerable than their adult counterparts. Children in brick kilns report of being beaten with sticks and whipped to the point of injury. They do not receive compensation for their work, and are also sometimes kept as insurance to prevent the escape of adult family members, reports Human Rights Watch(11).

http://idsn.org/key-issues/caste-based-slavery/caste-based-slavery-in-pakistan/

http://www.brandeis.edu/projects/fse/slavery/contemporary/essay-bonded-labor.html

http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Muslim_Statistics_-_Slavery

Exactly what was and is happening to the Rohingya Muslims in Burma.