The Emerging Slavery
By Judith Achieng'
COPENHAGEN (IPS) - Before 1960, 'Kamaiya' was a word used as a compliment among the Tharu, an indigenous people living in the southern western plains of Nepal. It meant "a hard working individual".
The meaning of that word has now changed, after the community lost its land to upper classes from the mountains following massive World Health Organisation (WHO) malaria eradication programmes carried out in the area in the 1960s.
Today, 'Kamaiya' means bonded labour. Because they are landless and poor, the people of Tharu community have to work for their landlords, to earn a living.
Kamaiyas earn much lower wages, often in the form of paddy, despite the minimum wages outlined in government employment policies of about 60 rupees, an equivalent of one US dollar a day.
"Because there is no real wage, Kamaiyas frequently have to borrow money from their landlords, to educate their children and sustain their families, pushing them deeper into the debt misery," says Churna Chaudhary of the Nepal based human rights organisation, BASE.
The average debt per household is 75 US dollars but it is a lifetime of debt for most families, who invariably pass it on to their children.
Up to 75 percent of Kamaiya households are said to have inherited the debt from the previous generation.
Debt bonding in Nepal is illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in jail, but most of the landlords, often politicians and rich business people are too powerful to be touched. One landlord is also an owner of the largest media house in Nepal, explaining the lack of attention to Kamaiya plight in the local press.
Activists who attended last week’s Solidarity 2000 conference in Copenhagen say the situation of bonded labour in Nepal is similar to the debt situation in the Third World.
The difference, they say, is that in Nepal bonded labour is illegal, but internationally, it is not only allowed, but monetary institutions like the Bretton Woods have been set up with the purpose of controlling impoverishment through unsustainable debts.
Kamaiyas are totally subordinate to their landlords. who occasionally beat them, according to Tom White, a Danish activist attached to the Nepal-based non-governmental organisation BASE, fighting to free Kamaiyas.
And so are the poor in southern developing countries, according to White, who have to bear the burden of bad loans passed to them over generations by rich creditor countries in the north.
"Although we are told that slavery is finished, in the globalised economy, a different kind of slavery (is) emerging. We can see it in Africa and other Third World countries," White told a gathering at the conference.
The conference was a follow up to the World Summit on Social Development (WSSD) which took place in Copenhagen in 1995. During the summit, governments signed an agreement, committing themselves to ten goals of eradicating poverty and achieving social development.
Debt, is however, one of the key areas in which little progress has been achieved.
Most developing countries, especially in Africa, spend as much as 50 percent of their annual budgets or 20 to 40 percent of their export earnings on debt servicing, according to figures from the Danish based North-South Coalition.
Uganda for example, despite an annual 40 million US dollars debt relief packet, pays an annual 140 million US dollars in debt servicing. In terms of the average per capita income of 240 US dollars of its population of 21 million people, each person pays back some 180 US dollars compared to nine dollars and five dollars to education and health respectively.
"Because of these problems, our literacy levels are so high and 52 percent of Ugandans still get their water directly from swamps and other unprotected sources," laments Gerald Twijukye, of the Uganda Debt Network.
Much of the debt owed by developing countries also is, according to Lars Koch, the policy officer of the Coalition, high interests accumulated over time.
In other cases, debt was given to dictatorial regimes which were never accountable to their people. For example, the African National Congress, ANC, government in South Africa is now faced with debts incurred by the previous apartheid regime.
Similarly, Rwandese people are paying debt incurred by the previous regime to buy machetes and other weapons used to kill and maim them.
In 1995, during the Copenhagen summit, the debt issue was a hot topic.
The G8 countries also have admitted that the HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries) initiative set up to work out new debt relief programmes for poor nations has failed.
As a result, the group came up with another initiative, the PRSP (Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper) in which indebted countries are expected to draw up their own poverty reduction plans, as a condition for debt relief. "This also is not good enough," says Bo Tovby, the Danish representative of the Coalition.
"The PRSP does not belong to developing countries, when decisions and endorsements are still being done in Washington," says Koch.
In summer last year at the G8 meeting in Cologne, Germany, nations pledged to contribute 100 billion US dollars for the purpose of debt relief. However, only a handful of countries have received debt relief packages since then.
Angry at the lack of progress in this area, representatives of the Jubilee 2000 Coalition have called for unconditional debt cancellation in all poor countries.
"We urge debt cancellation not to be linked to economic reforms but to eradication of poverty," says Toyby.
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Has the world lived up to its 1996 commitments..?
Solidarity 2000 starting 17th of June!
MS's big summer event Solidarity 2000 will start very soon now, with a week-long variety of debates and arrangements. The activities range from encounters between young people from Balkan, Africa and Central America to big conferences on the planet's social development and environment.
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The 1996 Copenhagen Social Summit final report in English, French and Spanish.