A type of slav­ery exists in Pak­istan that forces peo­ple into indebt­ed­ness to landown­ers. Mil­lions of peo­ple in the coun­try either rent or share­crop land from wealthy landown­ers. These peo­ple are stuck doing this for gen­er­a­tion after gen­er­a­tion. Activists say that land reform needs to take place in the coun­try to get them­selves out of this prac­tice that keeps mil­lions form get­ting out of poverty.

From the IRIN, we read more about what the Anti-Slavery Inter­na­tional is call­ing Pak­istan to reform.

Dot­ted around Pak­istan are vast estates run by feu­dal land­lords who com­mand enor­mous eco­nomic and polit­i­cal power, con­demn­ing their ten­ants to poverty, reform activists charge.

On some of these estates, debt bondage has forced 1.8 mil­lion peo­ple to work the land for no pay, gen­er­a­tion after gen­er­a­tion, accord­ing to the cam­paign­ing group Anti-Slavery Inter­na­tional. On oth­ers, share­crop­ping sys­tems are prac­tised, under which land­less ten­ants hand over between two-thirds and half of the crops they pro­duce to the landowner.

“With­out dis­trib­ut­ing land among ten­ants and land­less peas­ants, there is no pos­si­bil­ity of progress. The end of feu­dal­ism is a must for mod­ern­iz­ing soci­ety. Until effec­tive land reforms are car­ried out, poverty can never be elim­i­nated,” Farooq Tariq, secretary-general of the Kissan Rabita Com­mit­tee, an alliance of 22 peas­ant orga­ni­za­tions, told IRIN.

Unlike other coun­tries in the region, includ­ing India, Pak­istan did not carry out land reforms after 1947, and attempts in the 1950s and 1970s to reduce the size of land hold­ings had lim­ited impact.

“Land reform has not taken place because the law­mak­ers in many cases them­selves have large land hold­ings and will never want to trans­fer own­er­ship to ten­ants. There will be no land reform until [the] peo­ple are in con­trol of gov­er­nance,” Mubashir Hasan, a for­mer finance min­is­ter and social activist, told IRIN.

About 2 per­cent of house­holds con­trol more than 45 per­cent of the land area. Pow­er­ful farm­ers have also taken advan­tage of gov­ern­ment sub­si­dies in water and agri­cul­ture, and ben­e­fited from tech­no­log­i­cal improve­ments which have boosted yields, accord­ing to the World Bank.

Lit­tle progress

By 1977 the biggest estates had only sur­ren­dered about 520,000 hectares, and nearly 285,000 hectares had been redis­trib­uted among some 71,000 farm­ers. Around 3,529 landown­ers have 513,114 hold­ings of more than 40.5 hectares in irri­gated areas, and 332,273 hold­ings of more than 40.5 hectares in non-irrigated areas, accord­ing to the government’s annual Eco­nomic Survey.

“We man­age to earn a lit­tle for our­selves by sell­ing the sur­plus corn and wheat that we take from the land. It is hard work, but despite this we have not been able to escape poverty. None of my four sons is edu­cated beyond the eighth grade. We needed their labour on the land,” said Kareem Muham­mad, a land­less ten­ant on a farm near the town of Okara, about 110km south of Lahore.

In Pun­jab, both share­crop­ping and fixed-rent con­tracts — where a rent per acre farmed is paid to the landowner by ten­ants — are prac­tised. In Sindh, about one third of the land falls under fixed-rent con­tracts and about two thirds of the land is share­cropped, gov­ern­ment sur­veys show.

Dis­con­tent

The sense of injus­tice cre­ated by the con­tin­ued hold of feu­dal land­lords and the poverty this gives rise to has been a key fac­tor in ris­ing social dis­con­tent — aided and abet­ted by mil­i­tant groups.

“I am a land­less farmer. Last year my teenage son was per­suaded by mem­bers of an orga­ni­za­tion engaged in jihad [holy war] to come away with them. They told him it is bet­ter to wield a gun and learn to use it than eke out a mis­er­able exis­tence till­ing land,” Riazud­din Ahmed, from Vehari in south­ern Pun­jab, told IRIN.

“My son is only 17. He saw no hope ahead of him, and there­fore went away with these peo­ple. His mother and I are dis­traught. But we believe he has gone to the north­ern areas and we have no means of find­ing him,” he said.

For­mer finance min­is­ter Has­san blamed this on oppres­sion and mis­ery. “Today, gov­er­nance has col­lapsed. Extrem­ism has grown and weapons have pro­lif­er­ated,” he said.

Accord­ing to the World Bank, 33 per­cent of Pakistan’s 162 mil­lion peo­ple live below the poverty line.

Farm­ing con­tributes 21 per­cent to gross domes­tic prod­uct (GDP) and employs 44 per­cent of the work­force, accord­ing to the government’s annual Eco­nomic Sur­vey. Of the total land area of 80.4 mil­lion hectares, about 22 mil­lion are cul­ti­vated, accord­ing to offi­cial data. Nearly 65 per­cent of this cul­ti­vated area is in Pun­jab, about 25 per­cent in Sindh and 10 per­cent in the North West Fron­tier Province and Balochistan.

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