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Key Text Fighting Chronic Poverty with Social Inclusion and Establishing Rights at Work: Reconstructing the Livelihood of the Kamaiya Ex Bonded Labourers of Western Nepal

Author: S Sadeque
Date: 2003
Size: 11 pages (50 KB)

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Summary

How can chronically poor and disenfranchised groups in be reached by poverty reduction efforts? This draft paper, prepared for the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, discusses measures for the social inclusion of ex-bonded labourers, and for promotion of their rights at work. It argues that the chronic poor require more than just economic support if they are to lift themselves out of poverty.

Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. Poor infrastructure, low levels of attainment in social indicators, isolation from the outside world and other factors have contributed to the perpetuation of poverty. Social exclusion is a state in which structural constraints such as gender, caste, ethnicity or other social barriers prevent access to living conditions which would allow people to satisfy their basic needs. Where such exclusionary processes exist, no poverty reduction measures will be effective unless such constraints are reduced.

Poverty is widespread and persistent in , and the secular trend over time is a linear increase in the number of people living in poverty. There is significant intra-regional variation in the poverty rate, and chronic poverty is also synonymous with caste- and ethnic-based stratification. One of the drivers of this is the Kamaiya bonded labour system:

The Tharu indigenous group of mid and western had their customary lands expropriated and turned over to various land grantees in the last century. Lacking non-agricultural skills and being largely illiterate, they were forced into bonded labour for their landlords. Compelled by debts or lack of alternative opportunities they entered into unequal yearly contracts committing their yearly labour to the landlords.
Usurious interest rates and low income ensured that there was no opportunity even for the next generation to escape from this system.
The Kamaiya system was outlawed by the Nepalese government in 2001.

Chronically poor groups require support that is more than merely economic in nature. All countries, irrespective of their level of economic development, can achieve a threshold of decent work.

One of the major factors behind widespread poverty is high under- and unemployment. Although ’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) recognises this, employment generation is still seen as a derivative outcome of other investments, rather than a strategy in itself. Hence the PRSP is in danger of missing its targets.
Active inclusionary measures for groups such as the Kamaiyas are vital. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has initiated education programmes to ensure no eligible person is left out of education services. Initiatives have included vocational education programmes, and have been supplemented with social mobilisation, group formation and micro-finance services.
The ILO has also initiated a micro-health insurance scheme for the Kamaiyas, as much of their income is spent on health care needs, jeopardising their food security.
Kamaiyas for the foreseeable future will continue to depend on agricultural wage labour as their principal form of income. It is important to establish monitoring systems against abuses of existing labour laws and accepted standards, and the ILO has entered into agreements with Trade Unions in , especially in the informal and rural sector.
The current action programme aims to: (i) Establish mechanisms such as community vigilance to prevent Kamaiyas entering into exploitative working conditions (ii) to educate ex-bonded labourers about their rights at work and to unionise them, and (iii) to strengthen the Agricultural Workers Union of Nepal to effectively monitor against the recurrence of bondage.

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Source: Sadeque, S.Z ‘Fighting Chronic Poverty with Social Inclusion and Establishing Rights at Work: Reconstructing the Livelihood of the Kamaiya Ex Bonded Labourers of Western Nepal’, Paper Presented at the International Conference on Staying Poor: Chronic Poverty and Development Policy Chronic Poverty Research Center, Institute for Development Policy and Management, 7-9 April 2003
Author: Chronic Poverty Research Centre, http://www.chronicpoverty.org/