3071-The political economy of new slavery

7
Bonded Labour in South Asia:
India, Nepal and Pakistan
Krishna Upadhyaya
Introduction
In the 1926 UN Slavery Convention slavery was defined as: ‘the status
or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers of the right
of ownership are exercised’. That definition covered traditional forms
of slavery, based on ownership, but it does not apply equally well to
contemporary circumstances. Today, recognized forms of slavery include
debt-bondage, serfdom, forced marriage in return for money and
exploitation of children’s labour. This chapter will focus on the forms of
slavery that fall under the term bonded labour.
In the UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the
Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery of 1956, debtbondage,
known as bonded labour in South Asia, is defined as:
where a debtor pledges his personal services or those of a person
under his control as security for a debt, if the reasonable value of
those services is not applied towards the payment of the debt or if
the length and nature of these services are not limited and defined.
In 1999, it was estimated that there were 20 million bonded labourers,
worldwide (Anti-Slavery International). There is no agreed estimate of
bonded labourers in South Asia.
Bonded labour is a contemporary form of slavery (UNHCHR), where
labourers are forced to accept exploitative conditions of work until the
‘debt’ is repaid. Debt is at the root of the system. This indebtedness distinguishes
bonded labour from other forms of forced labour. The UN’s
1956 convention and the ILO’s Forced Labour Convention of 1930 provide
a framework for combating this form of slavery. Although national
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