Haruwa–charuwa system
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The haruwa–charuwa system is a forced-labour system based on
debt bondage Debt bondage, also known as debt slavery, bonded labour, or peonage, is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation. Where the terms of the repayment are not clearly or reasonably stated, the pe ...
, prevalent in the agricultural sector of the eastern
Terai The Terai or Tarai is a lowland region in northern India and southern Nepal that lies south of the outer foothills of the Himalayas, the Sivalik Hills, and north of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. This lowland belt is characterised by tall grasslands, scr ...
region in
Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
. ''Haruwa'' means "forced tiller" and are usually adult males, while ''charuwa'' means "forced cattle-herder" and are usually women and children. The victims of this bonded labour system are usually
dalit Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the Caste system in India, castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold Varna (Hinduism), varna syste ...
families, most commonly from the
Musahar Musahar or Mushahar are a Dalit community found in the eastern Gangetic plain and the Terai. They are also known as ''Banbasi''.The other names of the Musahar are Bhuiyan and Rajawar Their name literally means 'rat-eater' due to their main form ...
caste. Due to
landlessness Landlessness is the quality or state of being without land, without access to land, or without having private ownership of land. Although overlapping considerably, landlessness is not a necessary condition of poverty. In modern capitalist societies, ...
and poverty, they are forced into service of landowner families under slavery-like conditions. The haruwa–charuwa system is similar to the
Haliya A Haliya ( ne, हलिया) is an agricultural bonded labourer who works on another person's land. The literal meaning of Haliya is "one who ploughs". Haliyas can be found throughout Nepal. But the Haliya system in the far western hilly part ...
and Kamaiya systems of western Nepal. Another term, ''kodarwa'', is often used to refer to strong men who cultivate the lands of landlords for wages or payment of debt, similar to haruwas. The written or oral contracts under which the haruwas, charuwas and kodarwas are employed are referred to as ''laguwas''. Even when only the patriarch of the family is contracted as a haruwa, the women and children are forced to work for the same landlord for little or no payment; such a woman worker is referred to as ''jaan''.


Practice

Families in extreme poverty, usually from the historically disadvantaged castes, enter into a haruwa–charuwa contract with landowners, called ''jamindars'' or ''girahats'', forced by economic circumstance. Mushahars are the principal caste groups working as haruwa–charuwas; other such groups are Ram, Khatwe and Paswan castes. Some families become haruwa–charuwas when they are forced to seek a loan due to an emergency. Due to a lack of bargaining power, they are forced to accept outrageous interest rates, often compounded, which means that the debt can never be repaid via labour. Such a debt-bonded haruwa–charuwa relationship lasts a life time and is usually inherited by the children of the indebted families as well. A less egregious form of haruwa–charuwa practice involves families in extreme poverty working on a temporary or seasonal basis under unfair contracts. While many charuwas are women and children of a haruwa's family, others are exclusively cattle herding labourers working under similar conditions as haruwas. Such charuwas herd and graze cattle of many families in the village in exchange for some grains paid annually. In recent years, inter-generational haruwa–girahat relationships are less prevalent. However, most haruwas are still found to exhaust their whole life in service of a single landlord once they enter such a relationship. They are paid subsistence wages in cash or grains. As such, they can not afford medical treatments, education and other necessities beyond food and shelter. A tenth of the labourers are forced to work even when seriously ill or injured. They are also likely to face wage deduction or non-payment of wages, including when sick or injured. Some are obliged to find and pay for a replacement when they are incapacitated. They are not allowed to work outside of the landlord's estate. They also suffer from wage deduction for poor productivity or other reasons as well as delayed or non-payment of wages. As they can not make any savings during their working age, most haruwa–charuwas find themselves in a precarious position when they grow old. The only recourse for haruwa–charuwas who want to leave their masters is to seek loan from another landlord to repay the loan to their current master and enter into servitude of the new landlord. In some communities, haruwa–charuwas enter the service of a landlord under an annual contract on a designated auspicious day, such as
Shree Panchami Vasant Panchami, also called Saraswati Puja in honor of the Hindu goddess Saraswati, is a festival that marks the preparation for the arrival of spring. The festival is celebrated in Indian religions in different ways depending on the region. ...
. They receive a patch of land as payment; the crops they grow on that patch for the year are theirs. Such land is often the least fertile of the landlord's estate or the most flood-prone. They also receive a daily wage of a few kilos of grain on days they work for the landlords, however they are not allowed to seek employment elsewhere when the landlord doesn't need them. There is a very high incidence of forced child labour, often unpaid, including children under the age of ten, among the haruwa–charuwa families, who are often also subjected to emotional and physical as well as sexual abuse. Those children who do not have to work for the landlords are instead sent to work in industries or the service sectors in urban areas, chiefly brick kilns and restaurants. Children suffer from communicable diseases due to poor sanitation as well as malnutrition.


Prevalence

According to a 2009 ILO estimate, about 94% of haruwa–charuwa and haliya families are employed as forced labour. A 2006 ILO/IPEC survey of nine VDCs in three districts found a total of around 1,600 haruwa–charuwa families. A Freedom Fund survey estimated the number of bonded labourers under the haruwa–charuwa system nationwide at around 97,000 adults and 13,000 children. It is most prevalent in the
Sunsari , nickname = , native_name_lang = , image_skyline = , image_size = , image_alt = , image_caption = Night view of Dharan, Itahari & Tarahara :: Barahakshetra Temple: BPKIHS, Dharan : Dharan Clock Tower , image_map = Sunsari district lo ...
,
Saptari Saptari ( ne, सप्तरी जिल्ला}), a part of Madhesh Province, is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal. Its district headquarter is Rajbiraj. Saptari is an Outer Terai district. This district covers an area of and has ...
,
Siraha Siraha ( Nepali: , ) is the headquarters and municipality of Siraha District, a part of Madhesh Province , Nepal. Siraha had a population of 28,442 according to the census of 2011. and a population of 82,531 as of 2015.The current population of Sir ...
, Dhanusa,
Sarlahi Sarlahi ( ne, सर्लाही ; Maithili: सर्लाही), a part of Madhesh Province, is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal. According to new laws, a combination of more than two or four villages makes a municipality, which ...
, Bara and
Rautahat Rautahat is a village development committee in Saptari District in the Sagarmatha Zone of south-eastern Nepal. At the time of the 1991 Nepal census it had a population of 2252 people living in 468 individual households. Jung Bahadur Rana ...
districts of eastern Terai. A 2013 ILO report estimated a total of 69,738 haruwa–charuwa families in these seven districts, about 9% of the total households in these districts. Among the seven districts, Dhanusha, Siraha and Saptari, which have a greater density of Dalit populations, have a greater prevalence rate. Dalits account for two-thirds of all haruwa–charuwa labourers. Around 23% of the total dalit households and 7% of the total Muslims households are haruwa–charuwas in these districts.


Status

According to James A. R. Nafziger, the haruwa–charuwa system falls under the category of forced/compulsory labour practices prohibited by the ILO's Forced Labour Convention of 1930. As a signatory to the convention, Nepal is obligated to eliminate the practice. However, Nepal has failed to enforce a ban on bonded labour. Nepal has previously categorically abolished the kamaiya and haliya systems and freed thousands of bonded labourers, many of whom have begun to return to their former masters due to severe poverty and lack of alternative opportunities for livelihood. By contrast, haruwa–charuwa labourers have never been specifically declared freed, although Nepali constitution and laws prohibit forced and bonded labour in general, with the Kamaiya Labour (Prohibitions) Act 2002 specifically having declared a ban on forced labour, including as haruwa–charuwas. The interim constitution of 2007 stipulated a policy for upliftment of marginalised communities including haruwa–charuwas; however, it has not resulted in any concrete programmes. In the annual budget for economic year 2011–12, the government had included provisions for education and employment of haruwa–charuwa communities and for providing loans at affordable rates for self-employment. However, no programmes were launched to officially document and identify haruwa–charuwas and therefore, they could not benefit from any such programmes. Haruwa–charuwas have not been able to benefit from similar such programmes of subsequent years that target the economically marginalised communities and freed forced labourers, for the same reason. Haruwa–charuwas are mostly landless and live in huts designated by the landlords or otherwise in the land under public ownership. These communities are therefore largely overlooked for development of infrastructure. According to an ILO survey, a third of haruwa–charuwa families reside in places which are not their own homes, 37% are landless and an additional 40% near-landless.


Initiatives

The government relies on support programmes for the upliftment of haruwa–charuwa families in partnerships with various organisations. Starting in 2008, the International Labour Organisation in partnership with the Government of Nepal, ran programmes to increase education and deter child labour among haruwa–charuwa communities, among others. Thirty-six million dollars were allocated for the programme which included withdrawal of haruwa–charuwa children from child labour and enrollment into formal education or out-of-school Programmes (OSP), non-formal education (NFE) and pre-vocational training for older children as well as literacy training, vocational training and group-dynamics training for haruwa–charuwa adults. The programme aimed at sustainable elimination of child labour and reintegration of families under forced-labour systems as free and economically independent members of the society. The ''Samudayik Bikas Manch'' runs a haruwa–charuwa upliftment programme under which it has run citizenship drives to help adults acquire their citizenship certificates, helped families toward economic independence with goat-rearing and other self-employment opportunities as well as school-enrollment and coaching of children and adult literacy classes for adults. Since the reestablishment of democracy in 2006, haruwa–charuwa communities have begun organising and campaigning for their rights. The Haruwa–Charuwa Rights Forum is one such grassroots organisation that campaigns for haruwa–charuwa rights.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Haruwa-charuwa system Labour in Nepal Contemporary slavery Madhesh Province Province No. 1 Dalit studies Debt bondage in Nepal Slavery in Asia