In a few words
We regularly identify bonded labourers around villages in Karnataka and enable them to file applications to the Deputy Commissioners for their release and rehabilitation.
We follow their applications to ensure that they are released and rehabilitated.
The identified and the released bonded labourers are encouraged to join the Union of Bonded Labourers and Agricultural Workers and meet in their village once a week.
We help women in the families of bonded labourers and agricultural workers form small self-help groups (SHGs) for savings and credit. Within these groups, they plan and carry out individual and collective projects for sustainable livelihoods.
Through the Union and the 1,597 SHGs, members are helped to access their various rights to minimum and equal wages, food, water, housing, education, health, information, representation in local governance and rights against discrimination as Dalits, Moolnivasis and women.
Continuous meetings, trainings, street theatre performances and public programmes are organised to raise awareness of bonded labourers and the general public on legal provisions on bonded labour and other related issues. Efforts are made to bring about changes in government policies at state and national levels. In 2004, we were invited to write the state plan of action for the eradication of bonded labour.
Meeting with bonded labourers’ families
in Thimmampalli
In 2010,
we won Free The Slaves’ Harriett Tubman Freedom Award.
The award is given to “a community-based organization that is demonstrating how slavery can be dismantled and destroyed.”