A/HRC/33/46 armed guards or their family members are held as hostages, severely limiting the freedom of movement both of the bonded labourers and of their families. 23 The estimates reported by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan pertaining to the period from 2011 to 2014 on the number of releases of bonded labourers ordered by courts in Sindh indicate that the largest number of releases occurred in the districts of Mirpur Khas, Sanghar and Umerkot. Furthermore, natural disasters such as the monsoon floods in 2010 have had a negative impact on the levels of debt bondage in agriculture and have increased migration-based bonded labour in numerous sectors such as construction and brickmaking. 24 Debt bondage in Pakistan is mainly found among minorities, such as non-Muslims (Hindus or Christians) or Muslims who have converted from Hinduism. 25 21. In Nepal, bonded labour can be found in sectors such as agriculture, cattle rearing, domestic labour, the brick kiln industry, embroidered textiles and the stone-breaking industry. 26 A United Nations assessment carried out in 2011 suggested that 547,000 individuals in Nepal were in forced and bonded labour. 27 A large proportion of bonded labourers were reported to be involved in traditional forms of agricultural bonded labour, such as haruwa-charuwa,28 haliya29 or kamaiya.30 The majority of kamaiya labourers were released following the declaration in 2000 that abolished the system and the enactment of the Bonded Labour (Prohibition) Act, 2058 (2002). 31 However, traces of the kamaiya system still remain, particularly where government action aimed at identification, release and rehabilitation has not reached those affected. In 2008 the Government abolished the haliya system and cancelled the debts of haliya bonded labourers, but in the absence of a comprehensive rehabilitation programme some reportedly remain trapped in debt bondage. A study conducted by ILO between 2008 and 2010 addressing forced labour of adults and children in agriculture, with a particular focus on the haruwa-charuwa system in central 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 GE.16-11363 Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, State of Human Rights in 2013, p. 82. Available from http://hrcp-web.org/publication/book-genre/annual-reports/. Siddharth Kara, Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia (New York, Columbia University Press, 2012), p. 71. Submission from Gulshan-e-John; submission from Green Rural Development Organization; and Aly Ercelawn and Muhammad Nauman, Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, “Bonded labour in Pakistan: an overview”, working paper (ILO, 2001), pp. 3-7. Walk Free Foundation, Global Slavery Index 2013, p. 50. United Nations country team in Nepal (2011), A Country Analysis with a Human Face, updated February 2013, p. 32. Available from http://un.org.np/reports/country-analysis-2011. Ibid. The haruwa/charuwa labourer (tiller and cattle herder) is employed on a daily, weekly or monthly basis with various types of employment contract, oral or written. These contract agreements often provide for work in exchange for land or for a portion of the harvest, or for work against an annual payment or to pay the interest on a loan. Furthermore, the labourer’s wife and children may also be obliged to work for the landowner, under pressures or threats such as being obliged to pay off their loans promptly, being excluded from sharecropping, being refused a loan in times of crisis, and violence. Also: ILO, Forced Labour of Adults and Children in the Agriculture Sector of Nepal (ILO Country Office for Nepal, 2013), series No. 11, p. xiii. Available from https://www.dol.gov/ilab/reports/pdf/Nepal_FL%20of%20Adults%20&%20Children%20in%20the% 20Agriculture%20S.pdf. United Nations country team in Nepal (2011). Haliya (agricultural labourers) are landless workers indebted to their landlords by custom and by debts that have not yet been repaid, sometimes over generations. Consequently, they receive no pay in return for the agricultural and domestic labour that they carry out. Some are allowed to migrate to India during the off-season to earn money to pay their debts. The system is prevalent in the Far Western Hill districts. The kamaiya system involved an agricultural labourer becoming bonded by receiving a loan from the landlord at the beginning of the work relationship. Submission from Anti-Slavery International. 9