What on earth is a freedom training programme? But that is precisely the kind of programme that 23 families, all of them bonded to labour at rice mills and brick kilns, have undergone for the last three days in Chennai.
“These people are not chained or locked inside the mill or kiln. Then what keeps them there,” asks Pranitha Timothy, Director, Aftercare, International Justice Mission (IJM). She coordinates the training programme with other staff and volunteers from IJM.
Most labourers stay on from a sense of fear and gratitude to the owner who lent them money when they most needed it. “They have no conception of their rights, and keep believing that they owe money to the owner, even years after working with the entire family for rock bottom wages. In fact when they are rescued, technically the owners actually owe them money,” she adds.
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It is this fear, the psychological bondage, that keeps them rooted to the mill or kiln and lingers on, even after they have been rescued. It is only when the assault (physical, verbal and sexual) gets impossible to bear that some of them run away, only to be dragged back again and beaten in front of other labourers so that the thought of freedom is completely erased from their minds, and replaced with fear.
The camp, therefore, aims at giving the rescued labourers awareness about their rights and raising their literally non-existent self esteem. It helps them, with psychiatric counselling and role play techniques, to snap the invisible bond that continues to keep them in fear of, or loyal to their abusers. Without this, and creation of viable sources of income, it is likely they succumb and go back to the same mill or kiln to work in exploitative circumstances.
Beidemariam Bekele of IJM, says in the two years before the aftercare programme was initiated, at least 16 per cent of the rescued bonded labourers went back to their owners. However, with the introduction of freedom training programme, only two percent went back. “Some of them will still go back. The connections and threats are that strong. Also life can be tough even outside of a mill or kiln,” Ms. Timothy explains.
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At the end of three days, Amulu and Govindayya, of Chittoor, who were rescued only a couple of months ago from a rice mill they were serving as indentured labour along with their two children, are still apprehensive about life outside. The owner (of the rice mill) is the ogre that threatens them in person and in nightmares. “Even if we have been told not to be scared, my parents are afraid. They think the owner will beat us up or kill us. What if that happens?” says Amulu.
Resettlement alternatives
People like them are offered resettlement alternatives and strategies to mobilise community support for their cause. Providing a source of income and some financial independence could help in such a case.
That is why IJM, while working with the bonded labourers, arranges to provide them with tools, such as nets, or small farming implements, that would ensure some form of income until the amount from the Government after rescue is paid up. Durai, who has been rescued from a rice mill in the Red Hills area, says it is these tools that have managed to find him daily wage work, which he would otherwise have no access to. “Now, I can even send my children to school. There was no school at the rice mill,” he says.
This amount (Rs.19,000), which is the second payment after the first instalment of Rs. 1000 is paid immediately after rescue, must reach them in six months. That, however, is often not the case. Also, the rescued labourers are entitled to three cents of land, Rs. 60,000 to build a house and can avail of a ration card and government health schemes, she says.
This is part of the information that is provided to those attending the workshops which also cover medical check-up, domestic violence, substance abuse and addictions, self help groups and community support structures.