What is debt bondage?
Dressember Reading Day #16
Every day during the month of December, we’re answering common questions and breaking down different aspects of human trafficking on our blog and Instagram. Join us in raising awareness about the injustice of human trafficking by sharing, donating, or joining the Dressember campaign (it’s not too late!).
What keeps someone in forced labor?
Forced labor can be steadily maintained by the use of debt bondage.
Debt bondage is work exchanged for a debt which, ultimately, can never be paid.
Also known as bonded labor or debt slavery, workers are told they can pay off a loan of their own or of a family member by working it off. The work is often difficult and imposed under brutal circumstances. The deal is set for people who cannot pay off a debt outright and, therefore, will require basic provided needs like shelter, food, and water. Living expenses continue to add to the original debt and the worker is unable to ever break free without coming under threat of the employer.
The consequences of attempting to escape debt bondage include vicious threats and added debt.
In many areas of South Asia like India and Pakistan, forced labor is not recognized as an illegal industry. An employer has the power to sue for more money and suffers limited risk when caught using what may finally qualify as forced labor. The difference between the amount of money a slaveholder can receive in a lawsuit versus what an escaped person can hope to receive with a legal defense is stark.
The brick kiln industry in parts of India supplies a large part of its free labor with women and children.
Children under the age of 14 make up approximately 20% of the workforce making bricks in places like Punjab. Women make up approximately 40% of the workforce. Neither are counted as laborers, however, their work is largely retained in order to help reach the quota of bricks required to pay off the debt. These families work long hours, performing difficult jobs in poor living conditions. The work term is seasonal and no records are kept officially to prove to the laborers where they stand on debt repayment. Many workers never see any payment for their labor.
Debt bondage happens everywhere—even in the United States.
Though legal slavery in America was abolished by 1865, lack of protections for domestic labor allows a different form of it to thrive today. While most forced labor in the U.S. involves the commercial sex industry, the domestic labor force is the second-largest component of debt bondage in this country. Domestic workers are not counted as “employees” under the National Relations Labor Act and they are often not protected against abusive employees if they are immigrants.
Learn more about modern debt slavery and what we’re doing here at Dressember to put this inhumane practice to an end.
Further Reading:
Dressember Blog - “The Deal with Debt Bondage”
G Okuma started writing her dreams and fictional court cases at age 6. Her long-term collaborative relationship with words led her to the College of William & Mary and eventually to freelance writing. Aside from assisting clients with online content, she's learning to garden in the highland desert of the southwest, advocating for human and animal rights, writing letters to those seeking an act of friendship on Instagram (@dear.little.g), practicing and teaching yoga, and exploring art and life with her husband and two cats.