A peasants' conference was organized in Sindh to focus on the problems of bonded labour.

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GRDO organized a Hari Conference/General Body of Hari Mazdoor Tanzeem (HMT) where oaths were administered to new Central Committee Members who were tentatively elected for three months. Shahida president, Lali deputy president, Nanji senior deputy president, general secratry Bilawal lund, treasury Sadoro, press secretary Nazir baloch and women secretary Manbai. Issue of Bonded Labor, laws regarding Bonded Labor and the implementation of these laws were discussed. Peasants (men and women) from different districts of Sindh participated in the program.

The speakers including leftist and hari leaders Jam Saqi, Dr Haider, Qamar Sheikh, Comrade Ghulam Hussain, Shahida, Amb bheel and others said that in the guidance of Shah Inayat Shaheed and Mai Bakhtawar and workers’ movement across the world they would strive for the rights of the tillers of the land and urged repeal of the Colonization Act 1912. Green Theatre Group performed a theatre on a peasant woman character and played songs too.

Following resolutions were passed unanimously by the participants
Every citizen had the right to have food, clothes, shelter, health cover, clean drinking water, education and other basic facilities.
The conference issued a declaration demanding strict implementation of the Agricultural Reforms Act 1977 in letter and spirit and withdrawal of all the exemptions in the act.
The conference demanded that the government should stop privatization of state lands including Thari cattle farm, take back forest lands from influential landlords and conduct a survey of Katcho, Kachho, Kohistan, Kachh, Thar and Thal areas.
The leaders urged the government to frame a law banning the sale of injurious chemicals, pesticides and fertilizers and waive all the loans the peasants owed to landlords in order to help eliminate bonded labour.
They called upon the government to allot lands to the liberated peasants have their NICs prepared on priority basis and register their names in voters lists.
They urged the government to stop sale of water to influential landlords and make sure they did not cultivate more than 33 per cent of their lands to guarantee supply of water to tail-end growers.
They demanded that the farmers should be given subsidy on seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, agricultural machinery, diesel and electricity used in operating tube-wells and announce support price for all the crops.
The government should direct the sugar mills to start crushing season and make payment to cane growers strictly in accordance with its notification, they said.

They advised the government to declare all the areas as calamity-hit which had been under mealy bug attack. All the villages in the rural and urban areas should be regularized, proper arrangements for health and education and clean drinking water should be made in the villages and minimum wages should be announced for the farm workers, they said.

The conference demanded that the tenancy tribunals and hari courts should be made subordinate to the judiciary and set up on the pattern of labour courts where peasants themselves or their representatives should be allowed to plead their cases.

-Bisharat Ali