Debt Bondage

Debt bondage, also called bonded labor, is a system in which a person pledges their labor, or the labor of a family member, as security against a debt, working to pay off the loan under terms and duration frequently kept vague or open-ended by the lender, so that the bonded laborer often remains obligated far longer than the value of the original debt would justify and, in generational forms of the practice, can pass the debt to children. The system is recognized under international law as a form of slavery: the United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery lists debt bondage among the practices similar to slavery that states parties commit to abolishing, and the International Labour Organization identifies debt bondage as the most widespread method of coercion used in forced labor globally. Contemporary debt bondage remains most heavily documented in South Asia, particularly in agriculture, brick kilns and quarrying in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, though the practice has also been documented in other regions in domestic work, agriculture and manufacturing. Distinguishing debt bondage from an ordinary loan is the disproportion between the value of the labor exacted and the debt owed, and the practical impossibility, by design or by circumstance, of the bonded laborer ever fully discharging the debt through their own labor.