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For The Press
Monday June 19, 2000 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Ehsan Ullah Khan will be one of the speakers in panel discussion on child labour at the ITGLWF Congress. The Congress will be held in Norrköping, Sweden, from 26 – 29 June 2000 under the banner 'Global Solidarity in a Global Industry'. In 1967, when he was thirty years old, a chance encounter with a desperate father changed Ehsan Ullah Khan's life. The man's two daughters had been raped and kidnapped by a brickkiln owner, and their father felt that life was no longer worth living. Khan became involved in trying to help the family, and in so doing took his first step in a lifelong struggle against bonded and child labour. The same year, brickkiln workers formed their own union, which campaigned on behalf of bonded workers in the sector and provided them with legal assistance. From the outset, the union's members were threatened, attacked, and even murdered. It took nearly 20 years for the courts to acknowledge the existence of bonded labour in the construction sector and to rule that it violated the Constitution. The ruling encouraged workers in other sectors to speak out. In 1988, the Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF) was formed as an umbrella organisation for groups of bonded workers. Khan has been arrested a number of times. In the early eighties, under the Zia dictatorship, he was arrested for publishing an article documenting how bonded brickkiln workers had died in experiments in a secret research project. He was held for six months in a dark cell in the infamous Lahore Fort. Since 1990, the main focus of the BLLF has been to provide basic education to former bonded labourers, in a programme known as "Struggle Against Slavery Through Education". Today some 11,000 children are receiving an education in 200 schools across the country. The starting point is to teach children to play again and enjoy their childhood. The children are given basic education and taught about their rights. Khan, who is often asked why the BLLF does not take more militant action, insists that education and democracy are the keys to development. In 1995, Khan was accused of sedition for mounting 'economic warfare' against his country and causing financial losses to Pakistani business interests abroad. The charge of sedition carries the death penalty. Five years later the case has still not come to trial. Khan is currently living in exile in Sweden and is unable to return to his country for fear of being arrested. The ITGLWF has called on Pakistan's ruler, General Peraiz Musharraf, to drop the charges of sedition against Khan. The charges against Khan were brought just a few weeks after the murder of internationally-acclaimed activist Iqbal Masih. Iqbal had been sold into slavery at the age of four, and spent most of the next six years shackled to a carpet-weaving loom. After Khan helped secure his release, the boy became a tireless campaigner against bonded labour, embodying Khan's philosophy. Iqbal was 12 when he was shot. Bonded labour is still widespread today in Pakistan and in many other countries in South Asia. Comments ITGLWF General Secretary, Neil Kearney: "Pakistan, which has perhaps as many as 20 million working children, devotes less than 3% of its annual budget on education and health combined, while 47% is spent on military expenditure. In the carpet sector alone there are at least 50,000 bonded child labourers. About half of them will die before the age of 12 from malnutrition and disease". The session 'Wiping out child labour' will be held on Thursday June 29 starting at 11:00 at the Louis De Geer Congress Centre in Norrköping, Sweden. Congress sessions are open to the press. Further information on the ITGLWF 8th World Congress is available at www.itglwf.org. For more information, contact: Neil Kearney (ITGLWF, Brussels) at 32/2/512.2606 or 32/75932487 or cell phone
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Bienvenido | El Congreso | Norrköping | Documentos | Prensa | Sobre la FITTVC |