Analyzing Human Trafficking through Debt Bondage in India

Human trafficking involves the coercion, force and manipulation to obtain cheap or free physical or domestic labor, the procurement of organs or commercial sexual acts from men, women and children. Today, human trafficking is held to be modern-day slavery as the movement of persons between countries has become more prevalent and increasingly, persons are trapped in human trafficking situations in their own village. This type of human trafficking takes many forms with one of these forms being debt bondage or peonage defined by Kara (2011) as “the exploitive interlinking of credit and labor agreements that devolve into slave-like exploitation due to severe power imbalances between the lender and the borrower”. Debt bondage is especially prevalent in South Asia especially India as it is embedded into their socio-economic structure. Thus, this paper will focus on different types of debt bondage in India, its victims, how they are recruited and controlled by their perpetrators, and how this exploitation is being fought by local, national, and international organizations.

The Bonded Labor System (Abolition) Act of 1976 prohibited all bonded labor in India but both adults and children are still being trapped in debt bondage situations reinforced by poverty and certain customs. The pervading caste-system in India has made those of the lower-classes, called Dalits, vulnerable to exploitation as they are considered the only ones inferior enough for manual, labor like ploughing and menial jobs in brick kilns (Upadhyaya, 2004). Middle to upper class landlords target these Dalit families and take advantage of their land ownership struggles by sharing loans without assets to the Dalits who can only repay them with their labor (Knight, 2012). Knight (2012) also posits that Dalit laborers will use employment agencies linked with these high-caste landlords to find jobs and the payment from the agency to the landlord becomes the principal debt that they incur and are unable to get out from subsequently. Their main asset is their labor where most bonded laborers can be found working in the agricultural sector in rice mills, silk farms and tea and cane plantations.

According to Knight, in the 1990’s almost 80 percent of bonded laborers worked in the agricultural sector (2012). As of 2019, agriculture is still the largest sector of the Indian economy, accounting for 17% of their Gross Domestic Product (India- Agricultural Sector). In the sugarcane industry, sugarcane plantations are owned by farmers from the dominant agricultural caste. (Marius-Gnanou,2008). However, labor jobbers capitalize on the hardships that migrant workers and their families face, which is made especially possible due to the seasonal nature of agriculture. Marius-Gnanou found that jobbers are typically of the same caste as those they recruit for or similarly affluent villagers (2008). Workers migrate to where there is job availability which is where the indebtedness to labor jobbers begin.

From the outset, workers seek a jobber to represent them as having a social network can prevent them from underpayment, but the amount of money needed to recruit workers is larger than the sum advanced to them by the employers. Therefore, they borrow high-interest loans from money lenders, and workers are enslaved in a cycle of paying these interests, and also borrowing from their boss to repay the interest. (Marius-Gnanou, 2008). Jobbers control the workers directly through interest repayment, but also indirectly through the harsh working conditions they must endure. The physical intensity of the labor, sun exposure, and low quality or lack thereof of food accounts for many illnesses and diseases which they need medical attention for, thus acquiring advances from their jobbers to expense these bills (Guérin, Venkatasubramanian & Kumar, 2015).

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Often, these landlords and jobbers manage to sustain these debts over generations, and many children are forced to work off debts incurred by their grandparents and parents, unable to (Hepburn & Simon, 2013). These intergenerational transfers increase the supply of child labor in the market, which leaves households worse off as they are paid lower wages and subsequent generations are more susceptible to debt bondage (Basu & Chau, 2004). Typically, traffickers will offer parents a cash advance on the child’s wages if they permit them to work, and these cash advances act as loans which accrue over time making the child indebted to providing the traffickers with their services (“Small Change”, 2003). However, according to Hepburn & Simon, many traffickers deceive parents into sending their child away by promising they will receive an education or learn a trade (2013). Children are especially targeted by these perpetrators as they are easy to control and are “unlikely to defy orders given by an imposing adult authority”, especially valued in industries that involve dangerous work conditions like the use of boiling water when manufacturing silk (Knight, 2012).

Although the problem of debt bondage slavery in India has pervaded much of the rural, and urban informal sector, burdening families and the lower castes, both the Indian government and the international community have prioritized its reduction. Hepburn and Simon (2013) noted that in July 2009, the Emigration Act was amended “to secure increased penalties for Indian labor recruitment agencies involved in deceptive recruitment practices and/or the trafficking of laborers.” This showed not only a direct prioritization of the laborers that are less educated on these operations and easily fall prey to such schemes, but also consequences for the traffickers. Aside from these laws, to reduce the number of laborer’s indebted to traffickers, they are “expanding a national scheme” to provide state-funded work days (200 per household) and an increase from 180 Rupees to 286 in Odisha where the majority of the labor force migrate and are then “duped by illegal agents” (Nagaraj, 2019).

On an international level, the Anti-Slavery Society has placed immense concentration on facilitating systematic change to reduce debt bondage contracts in the Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh region by regularly visiting brick-kilns in these areas to monitor working conditions (“India: Debt Bondage”, n.d.). “India: Debt Bondage” (n.d.) addresses how the Anti-Slavery Society not only identifies debt bondage situations but also raises awareness in villages prone to labor migration to identify schemes themselves, which has resulted in over 200 worker groups advocating for their own rights. Further, they have also lobbied and succeeded in influencing the Punjab government to sure that the children of brick-kiln workers get a primary education, thus slowing the cyclical effect of inter-generational debt bondage. Legislation wise, India is a part of internationally agreements such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 29 concerning Forced or Compulsory Labour, to which India is obligated to severe all customary norms furthering bonded slavery. (“V.I.I. Legal Framework”, n.d.). The United Nations has also paid special attention to debt bond slavery in India. They have combined forces with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to ensure that multinational corporations are closely monitoring their supply chains in India to check on workplace slavery through debt bondage in the brick-kiln industry (McKean, 2019).

Overall, one can see how deeply entrenched the intricacies of debt bondage are in India and why it is still so prevalent. This paper highlights three of the most common debt bondage situations in the rural informal sector of India- the Dalit bonded labor system due to their low class, debt bondage in the agricultural sector and intergeneration child labor bondage as well as their respective perpetrators and the means used to recruit and target those who are vulnerable. Further, this paper went on to discuss some of the Indian government’s legislative and humanitarian efforts, as well as those of the international community. Debt bondage has had a long lifespan in India due to both social and socio-economic factors and it is with great concern that organizations, both national and international, treat this matter with sensitivity and urgency.