Bonded labour is widespread in many countries, although forbidden by both national and international law.
"The ability of capital to move across borders with increasing ease in the era of globalization has implications for human rights. While human rights violations existed long before this period of rapid economic integration, the growing number of sectors covered by multilateral trade and investment agreements has set the stage for a new variety of human rights abuses which have not yet been suitably addressed. In several Asian countries and other emerging markets, businesses and governments have supported practices which violate the rights of workers with impunity through sweatshops and child, unfree, slave and
bonded labour. At the same time, globalization has served to focus heightened attention on such practices in general, including abuses that existed before globalization but were often ignored."
(Howse R. and Mutua, M.,
Protecting Human Rights in a Global Economy: Challenges for the World Trade Organization, Right & Democracy, 2000, visited 2009-05-28)
"The economic means of establishing patron—client relationships nearly always have their basis in systems of landholding, such as share-cropping. Client families may be lent money, seed or goods by the patron, in order to see them through bad seasons, often in return for the unpaid labour of client family members. This can be regarded as benevolent, but also creates debts that may never be paid off.."
(Marshall, G.,
Patron-client relationship,
A Dictionary of Sociology, visited 2011-04-02)
