Over a million slave laborers in Pakistan have been dehumanized, oppressed and denied basic rights by a vicious coalition of feudal landlords (zamindars), a military regime and political interests. One local group trying to rescue them and help with rehabilitation has decided to provide some faces to these numbers.

Ms. Meeran
Captured by zamindar Lal Mangrio in tehsil Dhoronaro (formerly in Sanghar district, now in Umarkot district) 22 years ago with her family (including her father, four brothers and four sisters) she was released some 7 years ago. When her family planned to marry her within their community the son of the zamindar Ibrahim Mangrio kept her and along with his henchmen, sexually assaulted her.

As a result of this, she had two children. When she gave birth to a girl, the zamindar wanted the baby girl and on her refusal he poisoned the 7 month old baby named Meerzadi. She recently gave birth to a boy named Hanif. Now days Meeran is on run from zamindar who wants the boy. Recently he offered her Rs. 100,000 but she refused. She lives by constantly changing her place of residence in fear of zamindar.

Mrs. Lacho
Lalio Kolhi
After employing her family for 2 to 3 years as peasants, a zamindar near Umarkot declared that her family had loans of Rs. 50,000 from him and kept them in chains. One night this family ran from the private prison of zamindar but was captured by armed men who were employed by this zamindar. Lacho’s husband, Lalio Kolhi, was beaten badly and was separated from his family. On enquiring about her husband she was told that he is working on the fields. After some time Umarkot police raided this area and many workers were freed but there was no whereabouts of Lacho’s husband. She is still searching her husband.

Nanji Mal
Originally from Thar region, he migrated to the more irrigated area of Sindh near Umarkot after a period of drought. He first started working with Ghulam Qadir Marri some 12 years ago. After working for some time, when they demanded their wages, Marri told them that he has given money to them and they were indebted to him. He then sold Nanji and two other
families to another zamindar named Dhani Parto Ghaho.

Marri has claimed that he owe Rs. 300,000 on these three families. After working two years at Ghaho’s farm in Khipro district Sanghar one night Nanji ran away from the farm and met an advocate in Hyderabad with the help of human rights activists. A petition was filed in Sindh High Court and on the orders of high court police in the supervison of local civil judge raided the farm and released 14 persons from captivity. Nanji is still waiting for permanent settlement.

Manoo Bheel
One of the most famous cases of bonded labour issue is that of Manoo Bheel. Originally from Thar, Manoo too migrated to an irrigated area after a drought and in 1980s started working with a zamindar named Hayat Rind near Naukot in district Mithi as a working partner. After some years Rind claimed that Manoo had taken an advance so he refused the payment of Manoo’s wages and sold Manoo and three of his brothers and two of his in laws with their families (total 21 family members) to another zamindar named Abdul Rehman Marri in Sanghar district.

At Marri’s farm, the peasants started meetings to plan their escape and arranged for the escape of Kirshan Kolhi who later met many political, social and human rights activists and persuaded them to work for the freedom of other bonded labourers on that farm.

Under pressure, local administration raided the farm of Marri in the presence of human rights activists from Pakistan and United Kingdom. At the time of raid Manoo was working at another farm belonging to the same zamindar so he was not released but 71 others, including members of his family, were released in this single raid. As the only remaining captive, Manoo was tortured for his alleged involvement in raid. After some time Manoo too was released.

On 2nd April 1998 Rehman Marri along with another zamindar, Bashir Chowdri raided their transit residence with vehicle no. 0233 and kidnapped nine family members of Manoo who are still untraceable. Manoo is on token hunger strike in front of Hyderabad Press Club since 19 January 2003.

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