Bonded Slavery Fact Sheet

Here is a fact sheet on bonded slavery provided by the International Justice Mission. Learn more about injustice around the world and what IJM is doing to help. Once you know, your life will be changed.

Bonded slavery is the continual labor of an individual forced to work by mental or physical threat. Bonded slaves are owned by an employer to whom the slave or slave’s family is indebted. Bonded slaves are forced to work long hours, often seven days a week, for meager wages, if any, attempting to pay back a debt that increases at exorbitant interest rates. In reality, there is no way to repay the debt and the laborer becomes essentially a slave for life. Many bonded slaves are children who are beaten and abused if they do not fulfill the extreme expectations of the owner.

What are the facts?

·          According to the United Nations Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, an estimated 20 million people ere held in bonded slavery as of 1999.

·          In 2004 there are more slaves than were seized from Africa during four centuries f trans-Atlantic slave trade. (Kevin ales, Disposable People)

·          In 1850 a slave in the Southern United States cost the equivalent of $40,000 today. According to Free the Slaves, a lave today costs an average of $90.

·          Approximately two-thirds of today’s slaves are in South Asia. Human Rights Watch estimates that in India alone there are as many as 15 million children in bonded slavery.

How does bonded slavery happen?
When a personal or family emergency requires immediate funds the individual or family is forced to work for very little or no pay in exchange for a small loan. Because the debt increases faster than they’re paid a slave is trapped without hope of ever paying off the original debt. While IJM does not often find victims in physical chains, the intimidation of powerful oppressors is every bit as effective a means of restraint.

What does IJM do about bonded slavery?
IJM investigates and documents cases of bonded slavery, then works with local law enforcement within the country’s legal system to emancipate slaves and bring slaveholders to justice. IJM also works to secure quality after care for the victims.

How does IJM help real people held as bonded slaves?
Narakalappa is a 70-year-old man who was born into a family of bonded slaves (each generation assumes the debt of the previous). He and his children and grandchildren worked as slaves on an agricultural plantation. In June 2003, IJM led a raid on the property to identify and rescue as many bonded slaves as possible. IJM secured the release of 16 slaves, including Narakalappa. For the first time in his life, Narakalappa is now a free man. Bonded Slavery

Chinnanan was a bonded slave in a rock quarry for 20 years before IJM rescued him and 41 members of his family, including his granddaughter and great-granddaughter

“I am so happy,” the 75-year-old father exclaimed through a crooked-tooth smile. “We were suffering so badly without food or water in the quarry…and you are here. IJM is helping us.” Chinnanan was sold for a debt at age 55. Since then, the illegal bond that has weathered his body like dust in the quarry where he’s slaved for 20 years has passed to his children and his grandchildren — 42 family members in total.

When the slave owners learned of IJM’s investigation, they threatened the family and other quarry workers by withholding daily supplies of food and water. The families began selling what few possessions they had in order to afford only one meal a day to survive. IJM presented its documentation to local authorities leading to a massive wave of intervention releasing a total of 117 people held in bondage and arresting six of the owners who had enslaved them.

The intervention not only marked an unfathomable day of rejoicing for Chinnanan and each mother and father and child among the 117, but it tipped the scales of power in favor of the oppressed. The country’s government has provided rehabilitation funds to each of the victims and extends a powerful message to would-be perpetrators that the price of oppression is costly. For Chinnanan and his 32 grandchildren, the act of loving one’s neighbor is a treasure of life and hope and freedom.

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