Chained to servitude

It was a rainy afternoon. We sat tight in a car for a tip-off. We had a mole in a brick kiln who was supposed to alert us as the owner of the kiln walked in. The cops wanted to arrest him on location as they helped the release of the kiln workers. We got a call and rushed to the site. The owner was rounded up and asked to unlock the door behind which the workers were held captive. In the small room over 15 workers and their children were being illegally detained. They owed him money and he wouldn’t let them go until they returned every penny of it. He was holding them hostage and they were what is described as bonded labour. 

According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index, an estimated 45.8 million people are considered slaves around the world. Out of them, 58% of people living in slavery are from five countries: India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan. At present, 1.4% of India’s population lives in modern-day slavery.

Age-old problem 

Slave trade was an exceptionally brutal and profitable enterprise between the 1400s and 1900s. It is estimated that during this period around 28 million people were trafficked from Africa to work at the plantations in America. These people were subjected to inhuman atrocities. They were beaten, tortured and had the most punishing work hours and despicable living conditions. It is believed that about 20% of those trafficked died even before they reached their destination, chained to the ships that transported them from their homes. 
The slaves in America revolted and fought for their rights and dignity. It took years of struggle for them to gain their rights to education, employment etc. and they have come a long way with America electing its first black President 8 years back. But one cannot escape the fact that despite their years of struggle, they still experience racial violence across the world.

The adoption of the Slavery Convention in 1926 by the League of Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 declared slavery illegal.

In India too slavery was rampant. It became even more entrenched when Britishers fixed high level of rents to be paid by peasants. During the drought years, most peasants were unable to pay such exorbitant rents, forcing them to take loans at high interest rates from the moneylenders. Eventually, they lost their lands to a landlord and became a bonded labourer on the same lands they had once owned. Unfortunately, in India, after 70 years of independence, farmers still take loans at high interest rates, not to pay rent but for their daughter’s wedding or to pay for some sudden medical emergency. They finally lose ownership of their land, thus becoming bonded labour. Servitude then runs for generations in the family. 

Slavery continues, but in new forms

Slavery still exists today, not legally, of course, and continues to be a highly profitable industry around the world. 
Modern-day slavery is described as a situation where “a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, abuse of power or deception, with treatment akin to a farm animal.”

The categories of modern-day slavery are domestic servitude, sex trafficking, bonded labour, child labour and forced marriage. We see all of them around us and yet we have become immune to it. Sometimes in the households of our extended family or friends, we see boys and girls between the age of 9 and 14 as domestic help. They usually wake up early morning to start the daily household chores and get to sleep late in the night, after washing the last utensil post dinner. There is no thought of sending these children to school. Moreover, certain families prefer younger children as they come for far less money. 

There are several cases of children working in dangerous conditions such as in mining and welding at wages as low as Rs60 per week. Sometimes, the children are just given their meals with no wages being paid. In the South of Gujarat and Rajasthan, bonded labour is rampant especially in the brick kiln industry. A person has to take debt just once. It doesn’t matter whether the amount is small or large. This one act of taking loan chains them to a lifetime of bonded labour. And not only that one person, but the entire family and sometimes it extends to successive generations. Bonded labour is often accompanied by physical and sexual violence.

The International Labour Organization has estimated that about 11.7 million people are working as forced labour in Asia Pacific. However, many consider this number to be much higher in reality. According to UNICEF, 23 million girls are forced into marriages before they turn 18.

For most Indians, this is not shocking. Thousands of girls are sold for sex work either because their parents can no longer afford to keep them or because they have been thrown out of their homes and no longer have a place to live. Girls and women are promised lucrative jobs in big cities but are forced to do domestic work or sold to brothels.

While the new law on trafficking, expected to be passed later this year, will help those forced into domestic and sexual work, there is still a long way to go. Bonded and forced labour is a problem that is rampant; child marriage that is oftentimes forced is a reality for too many. A far more sensitive human trafficking law will treat victims as people in need of aid and will not consider them criminals, an important distinction that was lacking so far. The law originally did not differentiate between a trafficker and a victim of trafficking. 
Mexicans slaves of the US

In some ways the US allows the Mexicans to exist in the US. They get paid much less than an American would be paid and since they are undocumented they get paid in cash. This clandestine system supports a wage far below the minimum wage and keeps the Mexicans in slave-like conditions at agricultural farms. 
Middle East and why India doesn’t say anything

Scores of Indians travel to the Middle East, where they live and work in deplorable conditions. Their passports are taken away. There is no hope of going back home until their contracts expire. Often they are not paid and are left starving. Some are routinely abused and tortured. Only recently hundreds of Indian workers were rescued from Saudi Arabia where they were living in camps without pay and were virtually  starving. Nearly 3 million Indians live there and an overwhelming majority of them are no more than slaves. The Saudi government had virtually turned a blind eye to the torture that Indian workers were subjected to until recently when New Delhi stepped in to rescue thousands of Indian nationals stranded in the country with no money or permission to leave the country.

Freedom first

For all the talk about being civilisations and evolved societies, we still haven’t delivered to the people even basic human dignity. A large population lives in servitude and has barely enough to survive. Are we serious about bringing our population out into a place where they can at least afford their freedom?

The author is the Editor-in-Chief of dna and ZEE’s global English news channel WION. Follow him on Twitter @RohitGandhi_