Links: press, slavery
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Majority of Indian domestic workers ‘work seven days a week with no annual leave’ | The Independent
A survey of domestic workers revealed across six northeastern Indian states, a large majority of maids, cooks and other domestic staff worked seven days a week and were not given a single day of annual leave without having their pay docked.
Indian factory workers supplying major brands allege routine exploitation – BBC News
Indian workers in factories supplying the supermarket chains Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury's, and the fashion brand Ralph Lauren, told the BBC they are being subjected to exploitative conditions.
Child marriage and child labour: Slavery is not dead in sugarcane (COUNTERVIEW.ORG)
In August 2020, Global March Against Child Labour released an evidence-based report, providing an overview of the situation of child labour with a gender lens in sugarcane harvesting in India. The report highlights that children are pushed into hazardous child labour due to structural poverty among harvesters, most of whom are from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, also referred to as DBA (Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi/Tribal) in this article, because of exploitative hiring practices resulting in debt bondage. It was found that traditional gender-based norms contributed significantly to child labour by normalising unequal wages and unpaid family work.
Can India Ignore its Caste Realities While Relaxing Labour Laws? (News 18)
Several academicians, activists and politicians have warned against the caste repercussions of moves by certain states to dilute the laws in a bid to attract investors and manufacturers with the economy in dire straits amid the Covid-19 lockdown.
No work, new debt: Covid-19 creates perfect storm for slavery in India (Today)
Sewer Cleaners Wanted in Pakistan: Only Christians Need Apply (The New York Times)
In Pakistan, descendants of lower-caste Hindus who converted to Christianity centuries ago still find themselves marginalized, relegated to dirty jobs and grim fates.
COVID-19 Lockdown: Domestic Workers And A Class-Caste Divide (Feminism India)
COVID-19 poses new risks to India’s enslaved waste pickers (Thomson Reuters)
Indian waste pickers are struggling to obtain information or equipment to inform and protect them during the coronavirus pandemic. Thomson Reuters has run this article by IDSN Ambassador Aidan McQuade and IDSN’s Ritwajit Das, looking at the current challenges faced by Dalit waste pickers in India. While this article looks at India, similar situations are found in other South Asian countries.
The Indian village where child sexual exploitation is the norm (The Guardian)
Poverty and caste discrimination mean that children in Sagar Gram are being groomed by their own families for abuse
‘Call Me Priya’: film sparks debate about India’s textile industry
India Should Recognise That Manual Scavenging Is Akin to Slavery (TheWire)
Activists hope Mauritania court rulings signal “…
Towards Dawn: Combating Contemporary Forms of Slavery in Brick Kilns (Different Truths, 2016)
Lenin takes us through the sordid and macabre accounts of contemporary slavery in brick kilns, based on actual accounts of the hapless victims. Driven by hunger and starvation, many children die of malnutrition. When the bonded labourers ask for money for the treatment of sick children, they are beaten up, blue-black. Children die, young girls and women are sexually exploited. People cannot escape the debt traps and clutches of the brick kiln owners. They are hounded. Police are hand-in- gloves with the brick kiln owners. Against all odds, his organisation, Peoples’ Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR), has stood up for the cause of the Dalit and Musahar victims. There is a new dawn of dignity and identity for hopeless victims. Here’s a special story, an in-depth report to combat and resolve the problems, on the occasion of May Day by Different Truths (DT) and PVCHR.
India’s female scavengers enslaved by caste, gender discrimination (Reuters, 2016)
This ends with me: A ‘safai karamchari’s’ dreams for a different life (The Indian Express)
Twilight children – Disadvantaged caste working to meet Global market demands (Opinion – The Hindu)
To meet the demands of global markets, Indian manufacturers have replaced adult workers with teenaged, mostly female, workers drawn from agriculturally impoverished regions and disadvantaged castes.
Harsh Mander on how Dalit children continue to bear the brunt of untouchability (The Hindu)
Manual scavenging is illegal, so why do states continue to support the practice? (Scroll.in)
Response sought in the Dian case along with trafficking of child labour
High Court Serious; Asks the Government to Respond