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NRSP - ILO Project for the " Prevention of Family Indebtedness Microfinance and Related Services Project in Hyderabad

This Project is a remarkable example of the synergy that can arise when expertise, experience, advocacy, thoughtful planning and dedicated effort are fused with each other. The Project, titled Prevention of Family Indebtedness with Microfinance and Related Services Project, focused on the plight of former bonded labourers – men, women and children who had endured economic servitude and had finally escaped. For most, however, escape meant they were no less vulnerable to risks and economic shocks, and no more able to meet their economic needs. With no material possessions, no assets, unsophisticated knowledge about the labour market and urban life, no marketable skills and no access to the amenities the Government provides to citizens, the bonded labourers, known as haaris, were in no position to plan for their future or that of their children.

The Project is part of a four country study of bonded labour in South Asia, funded by the Social Finance Programme of the International Labour Organization and taking place in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. The Pakistan Project began with the signing of an Agreement between the ILO and NRSP on February 26, 2002 and ended in June 2003. In July and October 2003 and then in January 2004 three External Collaboration agreements were signed between ILO and NRSP for further extension of the Project on a quarterly basis. The last agreement between NRSP and ILO expired in February 2004. NRSP has carried out the project activities from its own resources and it has also submitted a proposal to the ILO office, to expand and extend the Project.

The Project’s purpose was to provide a social safety net for the former haaris. The safety net was intended to reduce the likelihood of freed bonded labourers being exploited or returning to bonded labour as a result of indebtedness. The safety net’s economic components included access to affordable micro-credit, a savings programme and, most innovatively, a land-lease programme that has so far enabled 54 families to own a piece of land. Eventually, 400 families will own a small plot of land to which they hold title.

The Project was undertaken in seven “camps” or settlements located in District Hyderabad and Taluka Kotri of District Dadu, Sindh. Members of 750 households participated in the Project. 

Two things about the Project deserve particular mention. One is that everyone in the camps was eligible to participate in all of the Project activities. Everyone could attend the training courses, consult the Doctors, attend the Health awareness events, enroll their children in school, and so on. Everyone was eligible to buy a plot of land, so long as they saved regularly. The only condition people were asked to meet was that they join a Self-Help Group in order to be eligible for micro-credit for enterprise development. The other point relates to outcome, and is particularly significant. It is that none of the families living in the camps has returned to debt bondage.

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