PRACTICAL APPLICATION: EmPLOymENT AND LABOUR RIGHTS
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labourers and their family members were freed from bondage overnight, with the government declaring
their debts to landlords void and threatening up to 10 years imprisonment for anyone keeping bonded
labourers.
When the government issued the Freedom Declaration, it also stipulated plans for rehabilitation,
including land grants for the freed kamaiyas. However, as of 2008, about half of the freed
kamaiyas are still landless. Furthermore, the land grants provided have generally been quite small
in size. Thus the fundamental condition that gave rise to bonded labour in the irst place, namely the
Tharus’ alienation from ancestral domain, is still a problem. The ongoing economic vulnerability of
the group makes them susceptible to other forms of labour exploitation including forced labour, child
labour and payment below the minimum wage. Peter Lowe. Kamaiya: Slavery and Freedom in
Nepal. Kathmandu, MS-Nepal, 2001 ILO Katmandu News report. 8th Kamaiya Liberation
Day observed in Nepal with the demand for effective rehabilitation of freed Kamaiyas. http:www.iloktm.
org.npread_more.asp?id=127
Latin America: Child labour and vocational training.
Of the approximately 40 million indigenous people in Latin America, almost half of them 15-18 million
are girls, boys and adolescents. Generally, it is estimated that indigenous children are twice as likely
to work as their non-indigenous peers. In order to combat child labour among indigenous children,
the development of high quality vocational training, relevant to the particular linguistic and cultural
context of indigenous peoples must be provided. In Central America, initiatives are taken to create
education and vocational training appropriate to the needs of indigenous peoples. In Nicaragua, the
Autonomous University of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua URACCAN and the Blueields Indian
and Caribbean University BICU are speciic educational institutions, established to provide
special programmes for indigenous peoples in the Autonomous Regions.
URACCAN contributes to strengthening the Regional Autonomy by complementary processes
of self-development, local capacity-building, multiethnic unity and integral training of men and
women in the Region. Its mission is to contribute to the strengthening of Autonomy by training
the human resources in the Region and for the Region; by making room for the development of
knowledge, skills and attitudes in order to preserve natural resources while promoting sustainability;
and creating local capacity so that the full exercise
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of human, indigenous and autonomic rights can be fulilled. In addition to bilingual, culturally-relevant
formal university courses in indigenous law and traditional medicines, these universities offer
programmes in leadership, literacy and community organizing to adults who have no previous formal
education. http:white.oit.org.peipec;
http:www.Uraccan.edu.ni. Case prepared by: Brenda Gonzales Mena.
Trade unions and indigenous communities combating forced labour in the Peruvian
Amazon region Indigenous peoples have for centuries been the
most affected by practices of forced labour in Latin America. The region has the second highest number
of victims of forced labour in the world, over 1.2 million people according to ILO estimates. In-depth
ield research in the rural areas of Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru, has conirmed that indigenous peoples
are particularly vulnerable to a form of forced labour called debt bondage. Indigenous workers are
recruited by labour intermediaries who – through wage advances and other manipulations - induce
them into an artiicial debt that they cannot repay. Long hours of work are not suficient to repay
this debt, thus trapping the workers into greater debt and a longer debt repayment period. This
system perpetuates the poverty or extreme poverty of the workers and impedes human and social
development.
In Peru, a study carried out in 2004 by the ILO and the Peruvian Ministry of Labour and Employment
Promotion conirmed the existence of forced labour practices in the context of illegal logging in the
tropical Amazon region, with an estimated number of 33,000 victims, most of which belong to indigenous
peoples.
The study revealed two main forms of forced labour in logging activities in the Amazon:
The most common modality is that indigenous •
communities are contracted to provide timber from their own land. The communities
in return receive money, food or other goods that are advanced to them under the
condition that the community members, who know the area, will deliver timber.
The second modality consists in situations
• where indigenous and other workers are hired
to work in logging camps. Both modalities use deception to entrap workers in
a cycle of debt and servitude that is often passed on from one generation to the next.
These forced labour practices are linked to the larger issue of discrimination against indigenous peoples in
the labour market. They are frequently at the bottom of the occupational ladder, engaged in low-pay,
irregular and unprotected employment and subject to discrimination in remuneration.
In 2006 and 2007, the ILO ofice in Peru and the Building and Wood Workers’ International BWI
signed two agreements to speciically address forced labour. The two organizations committed
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themselves to a series of joint activities, on awareness-raising, dissemination of information, and
efforts to organize workers in the forestry sector.
As a result, a trade union pilot project to combat forced labour in the forestry sector in Bolivia and
Peru was launched in August 2008, inanced by the Netherlands Trade Union Federation FNV. The
project is implemented in the Ucayali Region by the National Federation of Workers in the Wood and
Allied Industries FENATIMAP, an organisation that comprises workers from several trade unions and
associations linked to the forestry sector, mainly located in the Peruvian Amazon region. FENATIMAP
has for many years coordinated its actions with representatives from indigenous communities, and
has further extended its relations with indigenous organisations during the implementation of this
project.
The objective of the project is to contribute to the reduction of the number of workers in situations
of forced labour through a series of awareness- raising and capacity-building activities. These
activities include training of trade union promoters on issues such as forced labour, fundamental
rights of workers and indigenous peoples, legal mechanisms to respond to violations of these rights,
and organisational ways to advance collective action. Indigenous leaders participate in the
training and later organise training and awareness- raising activities in their respective communities
and organisations, together with FENATIMAP’s promoters.
As a result of the coordinated implementation of the project, indigenous organisations are establishing
formal links with FENATIMAP to enable further joint action to protect the fundamental rights of
workers and indigenous peoples. Awareness-raising activities are being organised in several locations
in the region, and the network of indigenous communities and organisations participating in these
actions is expanding. The established links are also proving valuable for the collection of information on
situations of forced labour and illegal logging in the region. The project has additionally disseminated
information on forced labour and indigenous peoples’ rights in the local media, making the issues
more visible to the authorities and the general public.
The project demonstrates that the coordination between indigenous organisations and trade
unions can facilitate indigenous peoples’ access to legal mechanisms; provide a wider network of
support; and open up new possibilities of dialogue within institutions where they have traditionally not
participated. The trade unions have gained a better understanding of the realities and problems faced by
indigenous peoples, and can raise their concerns in diverse contexts, including the different mechanisms
of social dialogue in which they participate. Bedoya and Bedoya: Trabajo forzoso en la
extracción de la madera en la Amazonía Peruana, ILO 2005;
A Global Alliance Against Forced Labour, ILO Global Report 2005.
Case prepared by Sanna Saarto, ILO’s Programme to Combat Forced Labour, Peru.
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xIII.
CONTACTS AND
COOPERATION
ACROSS BORDERS
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