Debt bondage
Debt bondage, also known as debt slavery, bonded labor, or peonage, is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation. Where the terms of the repayment are not clearly or reasonably stated, the person who holds the debt has thus some control over the laborer, whose freedom depends on the undefined debt repayment. The services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services' duration may be undefined, thus allowing the person supposedly owed the debt to demand services indefinitely. Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation.
Currently, debt bondage is the most common method of enslavement with an estimated 8.1 million people bonded to labor illegally as cited by the International Labour Organization in 2005. Debt bondage has been described by the United Nations as a form of "modern-day slavery" and the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery seeks to abolish the practice.
The practice is still prevalent primarily in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, although most countries in these regions are parties to the 'Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery'. It is estimated that 84 to 88% of the bonded laborers in the world are in South Asia. Lack of prosecution or insufficient punishment of this crime is the leading causes of the practice as it exists at this scale today
Overview
Definition
Though the Forced Labour Convention of 1930 by the International Labour Organization, which included 187 parties, sought to bring organized attention to eradicating slavery through forms of forced labor, formal opposition to debt bondage, in particular, came at the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery in 1956. The convention in 1956[2] defined debt bondage under Article 1, section (a):
- "Debt bondage, that is to say, the status or condition arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or of those of a person under his control as security for a debt if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debtor the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined;"
When a pledge to provide services to pay off debt is made by an individual, the employer often illegally inflates interest rates at an unreasonable amount, making it impossible for the individual to leave bonded labor. When the bonded laborer dies, debts are often passed on to children.
Usage of term
- See also: Human trafficking
Although debt bondage, forced labor, and human trafficking are all defined as forms or variations of slavery, each term is distinct. Debt bondage differs from forced labor and human trafficking in that a person consciously pledges to work as a means of repayment of debt without being placed into labor against will.
Debt bondage only applies to individuals who have no hopes of leaving the labor due to the inability to ever pay the debt back. Those who offer their services to repay a debt and the employer reduces the debt accordingly at a rate commensurate with the value of labor performed are not in debt bondage.
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Debt_bondage ]
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