HYDERABAD: Police on a court order conducted raid at a landlord’s private jail in Shaheed Benazirabad, recovered 25 persons and produced them before the Sindh High Court’s circuit bench in Hyderabad.
The police submitted a report about recovery of 25 persons in the court.
The recovered persons informed the court that they were imprisoned by the landowner in his private jail.
The court in an order allowed freed prisoners of the private jail to live their lives as they want to.
Justice Muhammad Hassan of the high court heard the case in the circuit bench.
It is pertinent to mention here that the bonded labour has not been an uncommon practice in the agriculture sector in the country.
A bench of Islamabad Hight Court, comprising Justice Athar Minallah, heard the case pertaining to bonded labor at brick kilns in November 2021. During the hearing, members of a Supreme Court commission set up on forced labour, had shared a report to the court.
The report stated that bondage by virtue of debt is a form of modern slavery. “All labourers are free and well within their rights to discontinue their jobs at brick kilns at any time”, the court had ordered.
The bench remarked that the loan given to the labourers against bondage is illegal and the workers are not obligated to pay it off. The judge maintained that the practice of debt bondage is in strict violation of the Supreme Court’s orders