After a two year journey and countless stories of success, our bonded labour project is coming to an end.

The project, entitled Majboor Kisko Bola (Who are you calling helpless?), provides information to help support bonded labourers - workers forced to work for free, often indefinitely, while they pay off a debt to a contractor. Today we are hosting an event in New Delhi to celebrate the success of the project along with some of its beneficiaries and other stakeholders. We kicked off the discussion with a last week, which included experts on bonded labour from around the world.

In the last year the bonded labour project has seen numerous cases reported and redressed in its 110 listeners’ villages across 11 districts in three states. The programme has prompted more than 5000 grievances against employers, 3000 demands for minimum wages, 400 press articles by trained journalists and 200 stories of escape.

But what are the real stories behind these statistics? Recently I visited a number of villages in Madhya Pradesh.

While I travelled around our target communities, I heard many stories of people being freed from bondage, and others who were deterred from entering into it.

In one village I met a labourer with a pregnant wife and a young daughter. He told me that he had recently been kidnapped, stripped, assaulted and paraded before a crowd of people by another man in his village.

“My contractor would not pay me”

When I asked him why he thought he was attacked, he told me, “I refused to work. I used to work as a labourer in the village, but my contractor would not pay me. When I would ask for my due, he would beat me up” he added, his eyes squinting in the heat.

“I felt horribly ashamed. I wanted to run away or kill myself.” he added.

After the assault, his father reported the incident to the local police but the case was not investigated. At that point, our project facilitator in the village contacted a local journalist who had attended Ö÷²¥´óÐã Media Action’s workshop, where he was trained in the legalities of bonded labour. The journalist immediately contacted the police station to inquire about the incident, the police registered a complaint and the accused were arrested.

No longer helpless

The young labourer told me “I may be weak but I am no longer afraid, because I know there are people from the NGOs and journalists who support me. I am no longer helpless”. His father added, “It has been due to the support of the bonded labour project team that we have been able to survive through this time. Otherwise I don’t think my son would have even been alive!"

The young labourer’s frail frame and his mud house which has no doors, make him vulnerable to another attack. However, now he understands the vulnerabilities he faces and is looking for work where his rights as a human being and rights as a labourer are respected. He proudly told me, “I now know my rights and no matter what happens to me, I will not let anyone take that away from me.”

This story reminded me that the strength of the bonded labour project lies in not just the radio programme but also the partnerships we make with journalists and others on the ground.

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The first thing that strikes you when you visit the district of Korba in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh is the land’s overwhelming beauty. Despite the vast factories and belching chimneys that modern industry has brought to the state, Chhattisgarh's natural beauty somehow survives.

But something else has also endured alongside modern industry: a form of slavery that persists in the 21^st ³¦±ð²Ô³Ù³Ü°ù²â.Ìý

Bonded labour – in which a person is trapped into working as a means of repaying a loan – was abolished by the Indian government in 1976. The Bonded Labour Abolition Act made the practice illegal and set out monetary benefits to the victims. However, the system of bondage continues to exist and evolve.

Traditionally, it has roots in India’s elaborate caste system, where lower caste farm labourers would work to pay off debts from their higher caste landlords. In the rapidly changing modern economy, however, this system has mutated along the lines of exploiting those that are most economically vulnerable.

During my recent visit to Chhattisgarh, I witnessed many examples of bonded labour. At one site near Korba, our team was instantly surrounded by about 300 workers, many of whom are paid less than Rs 130 (£1.40) per day.

Korba's natural resources draw workers from Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and West Bengal. First promised a sum above the minimum wage, labourers are extremely vulnerable to exploitation by thekedaars (contractors or middlemen).

Sunil, a 19-year-old migrant labourer from a border district in Jharkhand, hadn't been paid for three months. His thekedaarhad withheld his wages to make sure that he doesn't leave his current job with the money.

The appalling conditions in which tribal people in this region live also mean they are particularly vulnerable to bonded labour.

 

Gudumati is a small settlement, a 3 km trek deep inside the forests of Korba. Two families live there and all seven children suffer from acute malnutrition and stunted growth. Their parents are unaware of the most basic medical provisions, relying on jadibootis (herbs) to cure serious ailments.

These tribes are so isolated that one family head called Langhvaram whom we met did not know about the existence of any government official, not the chief minister of the state nor the district magistrate. He wasn’t even aware who the sarpanch (village head) was.  

Tribal settlements such as these receive few visitors – they seemed uncomfortable with our presence – and whatever interactions they have with the outside world are fraught. This makes reaching them or informing them of their rights difficult so they remain particularly vulnerable to exploitation.

In Ö÷²¥´óÐã Media Action's , we identified geographical, socio-economic and occupational areas where vulnerability to bondage was high.

Armed with that information and the insights we had gained from our research in the field, we made a 36-episode radio programme Majboor Kisko Bola! (Who Are You Calling Helpless!) which combined information about labour welfare and rights with entertainment. Broadcast to rural populations, the programmes were complemented by 20 listener groups in each state.  Research carried out in May 2011 found that the radio show led to an increased understanding of the nature and consequences of bonded labour amongst listeners.

This recent visit to Chhattisgarh has provided us with insights which will inform a new series of the programme that addresses the geographical and economic realities of our new target states.

One noticeable finding from our trips is how migration and contract-related bondage has risen while debt-related agricultural bondage has declined. 

The issues are different, the people are different and the types of labour and bondage are different.

What is unchanged is our desire to reach and inform people and help them stand up for their rights. 

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