WRITTEN QUESTION E-4104/00 by Graham Watson (ELDR) to the Commission. The bonded-labour system in Nepal, Pakistan and India.
Date: 2001-01-10
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: India, International Labour Conference, Nepal, Pakistan, carrying out of sentence, child labour, reintegration into working life, slavery, working conditions

C 187 E/134

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

3.7.2001

(2001/C 187 E/142)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-4104/00

by Graham Watson (ELDR) to the Commission

(10 January 2001)

Subject: The bonded-labour system in Nepal, Pakistan and India

There will be an opportunity at the International Labour Organisation Conference to be held in 2001 to
draw attention to the repeated failures of the Indian, Nepalese and Pakistani Governments to abolish
bonded labour.

Would the Commission consider:

1. How an independent survey might be carried out to establish the number and location of people

enslaved in this way?

2. What steps it might take to make sure that the laws prohibiting all forms of bonded labour are

understood and enforced?

3. What it might do to ensure that the ILO sets up systems to monitor the success of its assistance in

combating bonded labour?

(2001/C 187 E/143)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-4114/00

by Glenys Kinnock (PSE) to the Commission

(11 January 2001)

Subject: Bonded labour

What plans does the Commission have to use the ILO Conference in 2001 to draw attention to the
repeated failure of governments in, for example, India, Pakistan and Nepal, to take adequate measures to
abolish bonded labour and to use this Conference to urge all governments to acknowledge the scale of the
problem?

What action is the Commission taking to encourage the ILO to conduct independent and comprehensive
surveys in those countries where bonded labour exists, in order to ascertain the number and location of
people enslaved in this way?

Would the Commission outline what measures it is taking to ensure that laws prohibiting all forms of
bonded labour are understood and effectively enforced?

Joint answer
to Written Questions E-4104/00 and E-4114/00
given by Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(20 February 2001)

The Commission fully shares the Honourable Members(cid:146) concern about bonded labour practices in South
Asia. The complexity of this problem and its close links with social, economic and cultural factors emerge
from a high degree of poverty that still affects the most vulnerable social groups of the subcontinent.

In order to address the problems of bonded labour, it is the Commission(cid:146)s view that development co-
operation strategies should focus on specific initiatives aimed at poverty reduction thereby improving the
status of labour forces in critical sectors of economic activity.

The Commission also recognises the importance of the role of the specialised international agencies and of
instruments to improve the overall working conditions of
the appropriate use of existing multilateral
labour forces subject to discrimination.

The forthcoming international labour conference of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) 2001 will
constitute the most appropriate forum to assess globally the situation of bonded labour and to make
In
recommendations for completing, monitoring and enforcing already existing labour conventions.