There are different forms of forced labor including bonded labor, trafficking in human beings and other forms of modern slavery-illustrate and explain.
Constitution
A constitution is the fundamental law of a State which defines the rights and freedoms of citizens and the organization and separation of political power (legislative, executive, judicial). It determines the relationship and the functioning of various institutions within the country.
The Fundamental rights
Fundamental rights are a generally-regarded set of entitlements in the context of a legal system, wherein such system is itself said to be based upon this same set of basic, fundamental, or inalienable entitlements or “rights.” Such rights thus belong without presumption or cost of privilege to all human beings under such jurisdiction. The concept of human rights has been promoted as a legal concept in large part due to the idea that human beings have such “fundamental” rights, such that transcend all jurisdictions, but are typically reinforced in different ways and with different emphasis within different legal systems.
Fundamental Rights in the Constitution of Bangladesh
Bangladeshi people have 23 fundamental rights under the Constitution of Bangladesh, Part 3, and Articles 26 to 47A.
Forced Labor
At least 12.3 million people are victims of forced labor around the world. The ILO works to combat the practice and its causes. There are different forms of forced labor including bonded labor, trafficking in human beings and other forms of modern slavery. The most vulnerable are the victims: women and girls forced into prostitution, migrants trapped in debt bondage and sweatshop workers or farmers who work for little or nothing, kept there by means totally illegal. The ILO is addressing forced labor and its causes since its founding; it has stepped up action thereafter by establishing a Special Action Programmed.
History of Forced Labor
Nazi ideology considered forced manual labor as the means of choice not only to punish the opposition intellectuals, but also to “educate” the Germans so that they acquire a “race consciousness” and support the objectives of the National Socialist racial. From winter 1933, with the creation of the first concentration camps and sites of detention, forced labor – often meaningless and humiliating, and imposed are provided without the equipment, clothing, food or adequate rest – is a central concentration of the regime.
The Nazis imposed forced labor on Jewish civilians both in and out of concentration camps, and this before the war. At the end of 1938, most Jewish men living in Germany were forced into labor by various authorities of the Reich. In occupied Poland, the German authorities organized forced labor for Jews in the vicinity of ghettos, these ghettos were closed or not, and in special concentration camps for Jews under the jurisdiction of the SS, German civilian or military German. For example, in the Lodz ghetto, the Nazis settled 96 factories and workshops that produced goods to help the German war effort. In occupied Soviet Union, and elsewhere, after the beginning of the systematic extermination, forced labor of Jews was used almost exclusively in the concentration camps.
Forced Labor in the Constitution of Bangladesh:
Article 34: Prohibition of forced labor
1. All forms of forced labor are prohibited and any contravention of this provision shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law.
2. Nothing in this article shall apply to compulsory labor.
i. by persons undergoing lawful punishment for a criminal offence; or
ii. Required by any law for public purpose.
Article 34 guarantees that all forms of forced labour are prohibited, and any contravention of this provision shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law. Nothing in this article shall apply to compulsory labour by persons undergoing lawful punishment for a criminal offence, or required by any law for public purposes. [9]
the concerned law enforcement agencies have no respect for rule of law and fundamental rights enshrined under the constitution in particular freedom of expression. We live in a democracy where our constitution protects and ensures fundamental rights for every individual in our country. Extra-judicial killings in the name of “crossfire”, “gunfights” or “encounters” constitute blatant violation of fundamental rights that are enshrined in Articles 27, 31, 32 and 35 of the constitution.
Practice of Forced Labor in Bangladesh (Child Labor)
Siddharth Kara’s research trip to Bangladesh ended near the town of Srimongol, where he investigated the country’s tea industry. Much like their shrimp processing kinsmen to the south, the tea factories were locked down like prisons. It took several visits and numerous tactics to gain entry. In the factories that he managed to survey, as well as the countless acres of tea fields that he visited, he discovered a spectrum of worrying labor conditions that spanned everything from exceedingly low daily wages of $0.60 to reliable indications of forced labor. Child labor appeared to be at a minimum, and there did not seem to be much in the way of debt bondage or human trafficking for the purposes of securing fresh labor.
Child slave labor is a real problem in our world today. Corporations are using children for cheap labor so the top CEOs of the company can get even richer. Wal-Mart is one of today’s biggest corporations, with more than 500 stores located just throughout the United States. Wal-Mart is not just growing rapidly in the United States. In other countries such as China and Bangladesh, Wal-Mart has been making factories at a constant pace in these two countries. In Bangladesh women and children are forced to work about 14 hours a day, often seven days a week for wages as low as around 13 cents an hour. These extremely low wages just keep the women and children right on the poverty line, and leave them no way to get above it. The workers are paid just 10 cents for every Wal-Mart shirt that they sew. Garment factories, where Wal-Mart clothes are manufactured, just around 90 percent of around 3,780 export garment factories do not follow women’s legal right to three months maternity leave with full pay. One Wal-Mart contractor called Beximco was caught by the National Labor Committee, paying teenage seamstresses an hourly rate of 12p and their helpers 5p. This also made them work for 80 hours a week. These wages are just about half of Bangladesh’s minimum wage. The 80 hour work week also goes higher than what is allowed by law. Bangladesh’s work week is a maximum of 60 hours.
The overwhelming majority of working children is found in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Child labour also exists in many industrialised countries and is emerging in a number of East European countries that are now in transition to a free market economy. Although Bangladesh accounts for less than 2 percent of the world population, it is the home of 6.6 million working children, accounting for more than 5 percent of the world’s working child population numbering 120 million. In Bangladesh children are found working in almost all the sectors of the economy except mining, quarrying, electricity, gas and water. Many of them work 48 hours a week on an average, earning less than 500 taka per month. A large number of children work in occupations and industries, which are plainly dangerous and hazardous. [13]
Forced Prostitution
Bangladesh is a source and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. A significant share of Bangladesh’s trafficking victims are men recruited for work overseas with fraudulent employment offers who are subsequently exploited under conditions of forced labor or debt bondage. Children – both boys and girls – are trafficked within Bangladesh for commercial sexual exploitation, bonded labor, and forced labor. Some children are sold into bondage by their parents, while others are induced into labor or commercial sexual exploitation through fraud and physical coercion. Women and children from Bangladesh are also trafficked to India for commercial sexual exploitation. The Government of Bangladesh did not provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat sex trafficking or forced labor during the reporting period. labor, but the prescribed penalties of imprisonment for up to one year or a fine are not sufficiently stringent.
Bangladesh prohibits the trafficking of women and children for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation or involuntary servitude under the Repression of Women and Children Act of 2000 (amended in 2003), and prohibits the selling and buying of a child under the age of 18 for prostitution in Articles 372 and 373 of its penal code. Prescribed penalties under these sex trafficking statutes range from 10 years’ imprisonment to the death sentence. The most common sentence imposed on convicted sex traffickers is life imprisonment. These penalties are very stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape.
Conclusion
The above statements say that the constitution in Bangladesh clearly states about the forced labor and the punishments. It clearly prohibits forced labor and its practice. But in reality, it happens in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh fundamental rights are violated even by the law enforcement agencies. We heard of the terms “encounter”, “crossfire” etc. These are all against the human rights. It seems the government itself is not concerned of executing legal action for forced labor and for violation of laws of fundamental rights. We have proper constitution of Bangladesh but we have less willingness to execute it.
References
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