WRITTEN QUESTION E-3362/00

by Chris Davies (ELDR) to the Commission

(27 October 2000)

Subject: Slave labour in India, Nepal and Pakistan

Debt bondage, whereby people become bonded labourers when they take out a loan and are thereafter forced to work long hours for little or no pay, is common practice in India, Nepal and Pakistan.

Will the European Commission bring pressure to bear on the governments of these countries to stop such practices? Has this issue been raised during multilateral talks with India, Nepal and Pakistan?

Answer given by Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(5 December 2000)

The Commission is well aware that socially disadvantaged and marginalised groups, in particular girls and women are most vulnerable to being subjected to the form of slave labour described by the Honourable Member.

Such practices are generally rooted in the pervasive poverty that reinforces existing social barriers and patterns of ethnic and sectarian discrimination, not only in the countries mentioned by the Honourable Member but also in many other countries with poor social indicators, including European countries.

Hence the Commission's strategy for cooperation, particularly in the sphere of development, aims first and foremost at reducing the incidence of poverty and thereby paving the way to empower the groups that are most likely to fall prey to the practice outlined by the Honourable Member. The Commission maintains with all three countries cited by the Honourable Member an active dialogue on development and economic co-operation aimed at reducing poverty, modernising the economic institutions and helping bring about conditions in which adequate jobs are generated.

In India the Commission has committed the largest share of its development aid to bolstering a major government programme that aims at ensuring that within the first decade of this new millennium quality primary education is universally accessible to all school age children, even in the remotest villages. Universal primary education is essential to addressing the conditions in which child, slave and bonded labour are possible. The Commission further co-funds dozens of non-governmental organisations running social action programmes that contribute to the economic and social empowerment of the poorest of the poor.

With Pakistan, the Commission will continue to raise the issue of child and bonded labour with the authorities. The Commission is the key partner in the international labour organisation international programme on elimination of child labour (IPEC) that aims to combat the practice of abusive child and bonded labour through measures of prevention, withdrawal and rehabilitation. At a human rights convention in April 2000 the Pakistani government outlined a course of action aimed at addressing the problem of bonded labour. It recently set up a special fund for the education of working children and rehabilitation of freed bonded labourers, a course of action long advocated in our dialogue and co-operation programmes.

The Commission is currently in a close dialogue with the Nepalese authorities with a view to identifying effective programmes that underpin the government decree of 17 July 2000 prohibiting the practice of bonded labour.