Exploited workers, a labour policy’s empty promises

In July, while probing instances of forced labour in the seafood industry on India’s eastern coast, this writer met hundreds of women driven to desperation, peeling fish heads on cold tables without gloves, all for meagre wages as farming failed their families. Promised Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) and Provident Fund benefits at the time of recruitment, they were reclassified as “daily wagers” a month before my visit. There was a modest wage hike, but they lost both benefits as the company stopped contributions. Vulnerable, they toil long hours —trapped in exploitation that has come to define forced labour — exposing the fragility of their legal safeguards in India’s labour landscape.

Against this grim backdrop — where 11 million people endure modern slavery in India, the world’s high