Pakistan’s mineworkers face harsh conditions

Following are excerpts from an analysis by Zia Ur Rehman, currently based in London, that gives insight into the position of the working class in Pakistan, which we publish with permission of the author.

Eleven mineworkers were killed in a March 7 explosion caused by the accumulation of gas in a coal mine located on the outskirts of Quetta, Pakistan, and run by Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation. All the dead workers were from Shangla, a district adjacent to Swat Valley.

A Shangla resident reported that the mood was sad when the corpses of the 11 mineworkers arrived for burial at the Mian Kilay, a remote village of Shangla. A majority of the village’s inhabitants work in the mining sector in the Balochistan, NWFP and Sindh regions.

Two months ago, an explosion at a coal mine in the Mach area killed eight miners. The rescuers took a month to recover their bodies.

District Shangla along with Kohistan, Dera Bugti, Tharparkar and Jhal Magsi districts have the lowest Human Development Index in Pakistan. Because of immense poverty, unemployment, a lack of income resources, a high rate of population growth and illiteracy, the Shangla people are compelled to work in the mining industry with its dangerous working environment and occupational health hazards to support their families.

The scarcity of development funds allocated to the provincial government and the decreasing number and size of public sector projects contribute to the lack of development of the area.

Mining work is extremely hard physically. Since there is almost no mechanization, all the mining operations, i.e., coal extraction, loading and transportation, are done manually in most of the mines.

A mineworker, Fazlur Rehman, 24, hailing from Mian Kilay, Shangla, told this writer that the work in the mining industry in the Balochistan is very difficult, as it includes digging, drilling and blasting the coal mines. “It is our ancestral profession and my father was also killed by gas suffocation in a mine 15 years ago. We dig thousands of feet below the ground and make a hollow tunnel in a mountain just to earn the livelihood for our family members, but often the mineworkers die due to gas suffocation or blasts, it is so terrifying,” he added.

In a seminar based on his research entitled, “Bonded labor in mining sector in Pakistan,” Ahmed Saleem, a senior researcher working with the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, revealed that the worst form of bonded labor exists in the mining sector throughout the country.

Saleem said most of the miners belong to Shangla, Dir and other regions of Malakand Division. “Private mine owners send a middleman, who uses different tactics to trap people of these regions, especially Shangla. Being a local, whenever he comes to the village, he carries a large amount of money and distributes it to potential workers. Saleem said in case of a disaster, mine owners offer a little compensation. In cases of death, owners are bound to pay much more than that, but mostly such cases go unreported and miners are buried without informing their kin.

Saleem also revealed that many people live below the poverty line and easily get trapped by accepting loans that they can never repay. They end up working in mines.

The prevalence of diseases amongst mineworkers is also very alarming. A Khyber Medical College’s research report on the mineworkers of District Shangla alone exposed that a majority of the mineworkers were found to be suffering occupational diseases, including pneumoconiosis, asthma, loss of hearing acuity, dermatitis and tuberculosis, all known as mineworkers’ diseases.

Pneumoconiosis is a lung disease resulting from chronic exposure to coal dust, its inhalation and deposition. Major factors responsible for such a devastating condition include poor hygienic conditions, traditional mining practices, no availability of personal protective equipment and odd working hours for coal mine workers.

The resulting figures on occupational accidents in the mining sector in Pakistan are very shocking. According to an estimate, more than 100 people lose their lives annually and a similar number are disabled. Abdul Salam, a workers’ rights campaigner associated with Labor Education Foundation, said that thousands of the mineworkers toil under life-threatening conditions.

Salam added that inhuman child and bonded labor violations take place in the mining sector and many of the mineworkers are registered as daily-wages workers, brought to a coal mine by the contractor. For protection of the rights and lives of mineworkers, Salam emphasized the need to review and implement according to current needs the 1923 Mine Act, which already contains provisions for the exclusion of children under 13 years old, the granting of a weekly holiday and the limitation of weekly hours to 60 above ground and 54 below ground.