KATHMANDU The International Labor Organization (ILO) pledged $3.5 million on Tuesday for a project to support about 75,000 people freed from conditions of near slavery in Nepal.
"This project represents a milestone in efforts to find an end to an archaic, feudal practice that has enslaved thousands of agricultural workers over decades," said Roger Bohning, director of ILO's infocus program on promoting the declaration on fundamental principles and human rights at work.
Many former bonded laborers say they had no work or place to live after the government banned the decades-old system in July and landlords refused support.
The ILO project will provide employment and education to help rehabilitate formerly bonded families who have no home or land in Nepal, among the world's poorest nations where the average annual income is barely $200 a head.
The ILO's "sustainable elimination of bonded labor in Nepal" project to be funded by the United States Department of Labor aims to prevent the freed people from reentering exploitative forms of labor.
Under the bonded labor system that was in practice in five districts in west Nepal, poor laborers were forced to work for landlords or moneylenders because of indebtedness.
They received far lower wages than the 75 U.S. cents fixed by the government as daily minimum wages for farm laborers, leaving them trapped in a vicious spiral of debt.
(Reuter)