Debt Bondage of Agriculture Workers in the Wake of Floods, 2011 Sindh

Abstract

As evident in all natural disasters in the world, socially vulnerable segment of society bears most losses caused by the calamities. For not being able to face the severity of the situation people like agriculture workers were the prime victims of rain followed by floods 2011 in Sindh province of Pakistan. The floods caused major losses to infrastructure of health, education and communication in lower part of Sindh where majority of the people are agriculture workers. Most of the victims had no movable valuables, which could have been exchanged for livelihood in rain-flood emergency. Those who had some cattle and other pets could not take with them because the only thing they could save was their family members‘ lives. That resulted on their sole dependence on government and aid agencies/NGOs for food and temporary shelter. These floods were a challenge for the government and nation as whole to gauge our capability and preparedness whether we were able to face the disasters or not. The following article is based on our visits and observation of flood-affected areas. Focus has been given to Mirpurkhas district for its agriculture importance in Sindh.