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RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN RIGHTS
E-Newsletter
Vol.2 No.33
August 14, 2000
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Religious Perspectives on Human Rights is now available online at: http://www.rghr.net
Religious Perspectives on Human Rights is a weekly e-newsletter issued by Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic and Christian Groups on Human Rights, initiated by the Asian Human Rights Commission.
1) Kamaiyas
of Nepal: Bonded No More?
[Published in The Independent Weekly, Kathmandu, July 26 -
August 01, 2000 Vol X No 23, Wednesday]
(http://www.nepalnews.com.np/contents/englishweekly/independent/11-06/index.htm)
By Bipin Adhikari
The question - are Kamaiyas or bonded laborers no more bonded?
- is a difficult one due to a number of other unanswered
questions. No social system can be conceived as independent of
culture, context or shared understandings. In fact, Kamaiyas owe
their origin both to our feudal culture and lack of human rights
consciousness down the years. It is often in the name of cultural
integrity as well as social stability that authoritarian
Governments resist democratic reforms based on human rights. That
must precisely have been the reason for the continuity of the
Kamaiya system in Nepal.
The recent declaration of the Government that the bonded
laborers are emancipated is a welcome move. But it is not enough.
In the first place, the Kamaiya system relates with
exploitation of one class of people by the other.. A single
stroke of governmental declaration cannot put an end to it. It
merely highlights the government's intention to give effect to
the constitutional pledge made by 1990 Constitution; in response
to the protest movement recently organized in the western
Nepal. At its heart there is no sense of empowerment
and inner fulfillment. As such there is a deep sense of unease
about the future.
The Kamaiya system refers to an inhuman modus operandi whereby
adults and children work for the landlords in conditions of
servitude to pay off a debt - usually incurred by a person's
relatives or guardians. The debt is rarely if ever paid off due
to high interest rates charged by the lender. Moreover, the
servitude engendered by the debt can be passed from one
generation to the next within the same family. Additionally, the
system may contain features of slavery, where landlords are
allowed by the local custom to acquire or dispose of a Kamaiya
with a view to selling or exchanging him. While this is the
general formulation, the system also has sub-systems, peculiar to
each geographical region of Western Nepal.
The Kamaiya system found in Kailali may be different from the
system found in Dang in their minute details. Similarly, there
are a lot of agricultural wage-earners, also known as Kamaiya,
who work in the land of others on a pre-negotiated basis for the
whole year starting from the Nepali month of Magh. It is a
contract labor system, mutually decided between the landlord and
the labor, and the parties to the contract are free whether to
renew the contract or not for another duration. This arrangement
is definitely different from what has been referred above. But
even this form of contract labor may assume the character of
bonded labor, when the laborer borrows money from the landlord
for any reason and cannot pay on the due date, and in the process
the contract acquires the nature of bonded labor contract. It
happens frequently because the wage the Kamaiyas receive (whether
legal minimum wage or otherwise) is not enough to meet their
requirements, and they need loans from the landlord.
It is also necessary to understand that there were plenty of
cases where bonded laborers did not involve debt at all. They
were chosen by the laborers on consensual basis, or on the basis
of lucrative offers made by the landlords. Many laborers
preferred to be a bonded laborer than an ordinary laborer. An
ordinary laborer was not entitled to get additional support, love
and care that a bonded laborer would deserve. It was the
responsibility of the landlord to ensure proper level of housing,
clothing, and food for the bonded laborers. The landlord also
used to be under a duty to provide medical care, marriage
expenses, cash or crops payment for death and birth rituals, and
other contingencies. It is still not unlikely to find many bonded
laborers in the Western Nepal whose alcohol or tobacco needs are
borne out by the bonded landlord. The concept of minimum wage did
not work there.
Even where debtor-creditor relations were involved, the bonded
laborers enjoyed benefits unknown to others in the labor market.
An ordinary agricultural labor is not entitled to these claims.
He is entitled to minimum wage (at least in principle) and the
landlord does not have any social or economic responsibility
towards him. His life is in greater danger because he is without
subsistence lands, without alternative economic security, and the
state support system never existed in Nepal.
Even now the change is very marginal. As such, the bonded
labor system founded on feudal setting, had developed as an
institution, in the course of many years. The traditional
morality protected it, and the religious traditions of the
landlords prevented them from doing injustice and excesses.
The law needs to be supplemented by a number of social
engineering works to reach its social goals. The system of bonded
labor in its present form must be understood in the overall
declining economic context of Nepal which creates not only
slavery and slave-like situation but also girls trafficking, debt
bondage, aggravated daijo system in the Terai region, commercial
sexual exploitation of children, the practice of untouchability,
and governmental lawlessness and declining social
sanctions.
Apparently, the move of the Government seems to be a populist
one, and its effect might be dangerous to the agriculture sector.
The Kamaiyas said to be released need food, shelter, and job to
be emancipated from their existing bondage. The human rights
workers in the country are also curious about how the Government
is creating alternative employment for them. There must be an
alternative support system. It is strange that there is neither
immediate relief measures nor assurances from the Government to
provide them a life of dignity. They now do not have the
protection of the landlords (no matter how feeble it was) or of
the Government.
The present euphoria on the emancipation of bonded laborers is
thus going to be rather short-lived.
[Adhikari is a lawyer]
2)
DEBT RELIEF: "Forgiveness" Requires Responsibility --
Commentary
Debt relief is about realizing the responsibility of both
lending and borrowing governments, the head of campaigns for the
debt relief advocacy group Jubilee 2000 writes in response to a 9
August commentary in the Financial Times. "The corruption
and misspending cited as obstacles to debt cancellation were not
obstacles to lending money in the first place -- indeed, creditor
countries have fostered their own interests by selling arms and
supporting corrupt elites in developing countries," Marlene
Barrett writes. Despite significant discussion of the issue,
"benefits have not been seen as creditors have canceled
hardly any debts," she writes. Without debt relief, Barrett
continues, the UN target of halving world poverty by 2015 will be
"nothing but a pipe dream" (Marlene Barrett, Financial
Times, 11 Aug).
3) NEWS IN BRIEF
August 9, 2000
Aceh human rights crusader goes missing, TNI denies fault
JAKARTA (IO) - The Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI) yesterday
rejected claims that it was responsible for the disappearance of
a US-based Acehnese human rights campaigner, who went missing in
the North Sumatra capital of Medan.
Jafar Siddiq Hamzah, who heads the New York-based
International Forum for Aceh (IFA), went missing after an
appointment in Medan on Saturday, according to his relatives in
the restive province of Aceh.
Posted on 2000-08-14
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