BONDED LABOURER

An individual who is required to repay a debt, at an inflated interest rate, by working for his creditors.

"Many bonded labourers work for no wages, and food and clothing provided are added to their debt along with interest payments on the loan, thus increasing the debt on a daily basis. Most are forced to provide begar, a form of forced, unpaid labour, on top of the tasks assigned against the debt. Trafficking in bonded labourers who are unable to pay their debts is a common practice among landlords. Bonded labourers are sold by one landlord to another, usually for a price higher than the debt they had with their previous landlord thereby increasing the bonded labourer's debt."
(Labour Unity, Bonded Agricultural Labourers in Lower Sindh Province, Pakistan, 2006, visited 2009-05-04)

Bonded labour – or debt bondage – is probably the least known form of slavery today, and yet it is the most widely used method of enslaving people. A person becomes a bonded labourer when his or her labour is demanded as a means of repayment for a loan. The person is then tricked or trapped into working for very little or no pay. The value of his or her work is invariably greater than the original sum of money borrowed.

Bonded labour has existed for thousands of years. In South Asia it took root in the caste system and continues to flourish in feudal agricultural relationships. Bonded labour was also used as a method of colonial labour recruitment for plantations in Africa, the Caribbean and South East Asia. Despite the fact that bonded labour is illegal in most countries where it is found, governments are rarely willing to enforce the law, or to ensure that those who profit from it are punished.

Examples of bonded labourers are:

• families forced to work on agricultural estates in South Asia;
• children trafficked for profit in West Africa;
• women exported for domestic work and the sex trade in Europe.

(adapted from Anti-Slavery International, Bonded Labour, visited 2009-05-04)