dt.gl — EXPOSED! — Modern Day Slavery

In this week’s edition of EXPOSED! I’m taking a look at an issue that, I believe, many people don’t realize still exists…

Slavery, long banned and universally condemned, persists in many corners of the world, victimizing tens of millions of people. It is estimated that women and girls make up 71% of total people in slavery, with one in four victims being a child. Half of all victims are in debt bondage.

Debt bondage has been around since feudal times when employers would use this tactic to enslave those who were lower down the social order. Nowadays, debt bondage can be instigated through the use of misleading tactics such as offering job opportunities in exchange for a small debt. The debt however, compounds with high interest and becomes impossible to pay off. In Southeast Asia, domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to this practice. Costs are added by the employer for the employee to pay such as for accommodation, food and clothing, medical expenses etc. These soon outweigh the supposed salary and thus that person ends up enslaved and basically works without any remuneration.

In 1976 the Indian Government adopted the Bonded Labour System Abolition Act. This was in an effort to stop the debtor-creditor relationship in employment which led to inter-generational customary bondage. India’s worst form of bonded labour is in its notorious brick kilns. This industry tends to be in rural or semi-rural settings and is therefore out of sight of state and social monitoring. With nowhere else for them to go, a lot children end up staying with their parents at the kilns. As they are from migrant families, there is a lack of schools and teachers who can provide lessons in their local language and inevitably they become involved in the production of the bricks. The expansion of the real estate sector in India in recent years has fueled the demand for bricks by the construction industry.

Please read more on https://dt.gl on April 19, 2020.