What is bonded labor? Typically it occurs when people are given high interest loans and thus forced into paying back their debts by working for their lender. More than that it is a psychological control over an indebted person that often enslaves entire families for generations. This practice is illegal in the US as well as the practice of predatory loans, which have only recently been banned by the US government. That it is not to say that bonded labor does not exist in the US, but globally there is even less protection for these indentured servants.
What kind of work do these laborers perform? This is again a more complex question than it appears. Bonded labor is part of the sex trafficking industry and child labor operations but it also part of more hidden activities. Bonded laborers can be hidden in remote brick yards or in plain sight as house workers. These instances of hidden bonded labor make estimating numbers of laborers very difficult, but I will try to give you a few general global statistics:
- Approx. 12.3 million forced laborers world wide. Of this…
- 2.4 million are trafficked
- 9.8 million are exploited by private agents
- 2.5 million work for state or rebel military regimes
- 56% are women and girls
- 40-50% are children
- (Statistics from Prof. Prince Solomon, MCC)
In India bonded labor is an ever present problem plagued by domestic trafficking, paid off police and extremely poor population that are extremely vulnerable to these Kandha Vatis or loan sharks as we would call them in the US. However, there are social workers and organizations fighting against the bonded labor system in India, performing raids and offering rehabilitation services for those they liberate. We were lucky enough to visit one such organization run through Madras Christian College called the Family Life Institute.
The Family Life Institute works to release bonded laborers as well as offering services to reintroduce these people into society with their new found freedom. These services include classes and counseling, health services, a maternal care program, work opportunities, and a school for their children. We heard a few of their stories through Professor Solomon of MCC who works in the social work department as well as acting as one of the directors of the FLI. He started by telling us about the difficulties with successfully completing raid, the major difficulty being police corporation. First, the social workers must covertly gather evidence of a bonded labor operation including recordings of the testimonies from the laborers themselves. Only then will they order a warrant and employ the police force for the raid. Professor Solomon emphasized the fact that social workers are forced to keep their activities and plans hidden from the police until the last moments for fear that the police will tip off the organizers of these labor camps. This is just once tragic facet of the bonded labor scheme in India. It is hard for me to imagine trying to make any change in a system where the authority that we so rely on in the US, is just as much your enemy as the people you are trying to implicate. Finally, there are often middle men organizing the trafficking of these people that are nearly impossible to trace adding to the persistence of the system.
Professor Solomon also told of the difficulties that are faced immediately after the liberation of these people. Part of why the bonded labor scheme is so enslaving is the psychological aspect. Often the situation could be that the laborer has paid their debt long ago, but they remain trapped, sometimes for generations, because they have no concept have how much of their loan they have paid. They are convinced that their debt is still unpaid and furthermore, the employer convinces them that they have no other options. They enslave families by forcing children work to pay their parents debt; they play mind games setting up their workers to feel a sense of trust with them. These barriers have to be broken to convince the newly liberated workers that they are indeed free. There are still more effects of the bonded labor including depression, domestic violence and alcoholism. The day we visited the FLI, Professor Solomon was visiting a group of recently freed laborers to teach a class about domestic violence. These people could be uneducated or unfamiliar with Tamil or English as they are often from many different parts of the country, so he uses illustrations to make his point. Although we were not present at this class (we were doing some work at the school house) it was interesting to hear about his successes and his difficulties in rehabilitating these people.
Working with Professor Solomon and the FLI opened my mind to the true fact of what is bonded labor. Hearing statistics is much different than understanding the far reaching social and psychological effects of this indentured labor system. Although Professor Solomon repeatedly emphasized the difficulties they often faced and the small part they were playing in a much larger picture, it gave me hope that this program even exists. The FLI is growing in size and publicity, even making short films that tell the stories of bonded laborers. This work of making the issue more known is perhaps the most important work they can do in moving towards an elimination of bonded labor.
No comments:
Post a Comment