Debt Bondage Research Articles

The «great experiment» of cheap labor in Mauritius: a historical perspective

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the indenture system contributed to the development of a work ethic that facilitated the development of the Mauritian economy. The indentured labor system in Mauritius, though crucial for the island’s economic boom in the 19th century, involved harsh realities for laborers. Long contracts, limited freedoms, and debt bondage masked the ‘free’ labor narrative. Despite the exploitation, some former laborers achieved land ownership and entrepreneurship, showcasing resilience. Recognizing the vulnerability of a sugar-dependent economy, Mauritius embarked on diversification efforts, fostering tourism, manufacturing, and financial services. By examining the indentured labor system, we gain insights into the human cost of economic growth, the complexities of ‘free’ labor, and the long-term consequences of migration. This historical exploration sheds light on Mauritius’ social and economic transformation, highlighting its journey from a sugar-reliant nation to a more diversified and resilient economy.

Debt-financed migration: Agency and the productivity of debt

ABSTRACT Debt-financed migration has been a subject of academic interest for the past two decades. This phenomenon can be divided into two main mechanisms: salary deductions and upfront payments. In salary deductions, facilitators provide migrants with upfront funds that are later deducted from their salaries by their employers. In upfront payments, migrants borrow and mortgage assets to obtain capital to cover migration-related expenses upfront or upon arrival. These expenses are then repaid through remittances. Most of the existing literature on debt-financed migration has taken an economic perspective that emphasizes the risks of debt bondage in salary deductions and vulnerability in upfront payments. Studies critically examine the role of states, brokers, and markets in impacting migrants’ well-being and labor and human rights. However, considering the increasing intensity of migration flows and the widespread use of debt as a funding mechanism, evaluating the relevance of the conventional economic framework is essential. I argue this framework can be supplemented with a richer and more empirical understanding of agency that shows how migrants can effectively use debt for empowerment and protection against debt bondage and vulnerability. To support this argument, I delineate an economic anthropology framework highlighting migrants’ agentic use of debt to their advantage.

Is tuna ecolabeling causing fishers more harm than good?

Nearly 70,000 fishing crew are currently at sea catching the ecolabeled tuna in your sandwich or sushi. Tuna fishing on the High Seas is remote, making it difficult to detect forced labour and important to look into the welfare of fishers on vessels fishing for ecolabeled tuna. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) ecolabel says it is keeping forced labour out of the certified supply chain and that buyers choosing certified tuna significantly reduce their exposure. To determine how this is achieved, an analysis was performed of the primary data published by the MSC at https://fisheries.msc.org for the 3327 tuna vessels listed in its program. The data show that a majority of tuna vessel owners (1970 fishing employers) are participating anonymously. Their involvement in forced labour is unknown, and vessel conditions are untraceable for 74% of the tuna catches reported by certifiers. A majority of MSC’s tuna clients (about 4% fishing entities) refuted forced labour on behalf of 53% of tuna fishers in a template that MSC provides and protects with a disclaimer. Yet, on some of the vessels, tuna fishers have recently reported forced labour. Content analysis showed the information provided by MSC’s tuna clients overall deflects (rather than accepts) accountability for human rights and adverse effects, such as debt bondage. These findings matter to fishers’ welfare because the MSC has reported that its program encompasses 59% of the world’s tuna, making its assurances about lower risks in certified tuna influential in the sector, with potential to undermine criminal and civil enforcement.

The Dynamics of Debt Bondage in Pakistan: Causes and Consequences

The Dynamics of Debt Bondage in Pakistan: Causes and Consequences

The Well-Being of Muslim Migrant Workers in Malaysia Oil Palm Plantation: An Exploration of Expert Opinion

For several decades, palm oil is one of the main drivers of Malaysia’s economy and responsible in producing 8.5% of the world's oil and fat. In spite of its reputation as a main producer of palm oil, this industry depends heavily on migrant labor. In 2016, there were 429,351 laborers employed in the palm oil plantation industry. From this figure, 330,185 or 77% were foreign workers mostly from Bangladesh and Indonesia. Nonetheless, in recent developments, there were several issues that allegedly affected this industry, specifically in labor that impacted their well-being. Labor exploitation, debt bondage, abuse of vulnerability, deceit, and restriction of movement were among frequent issues that linked to migrant workers' well-being. Their well-being is essential in contributing to higher productivity of the workforce. Thus, the goal of this study is to explore the probable indicators that could affect their happiness.

Migrant sexual precarity through the lens of workplace litigation

AbstractTheories of precarity have emphasized workplace isolation, worker vulnerability and a lack of control over key features of work. Migration status has been viewed as an attribute that can exacerbate worker precarity, and sexual violence and bodily injury are viewed by feminist scholars including Violence Against Women scholars as sources of such precarity as well. Nevertheless, how the interaction of workplace conditions, migration status, gender and sexual violence impact migrants needs more attention. A new evidence base, the Migrant Worker Rights Database, explores workplace violations against migrants in 907 tribunal and court cases brought by migrants in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States over a 20‐year period. The data collected for this project demonstrates that female migrants experience higher rates of sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual servitude, and sex trafficking when compared with men. Further, while such collectively termed “sexual violence” offenses comprise a small percentage of cases in the Database (1.3%), they are characterized qualitatively by key features that present a heightened form of sexual precarity when compared with citizens: misuse by employers of visa conditions, debt bondage, live‐in arrangements, entrapment and slavery, and the combination of sexual violence with economic infringements such as wage theft and physical assault. Sexual precarity, this paper argues, should be viewed as an overlapping and reinforcing form of workplace precarity that has distinctly sexual and bodily dimensions.

Industrial Fragmentation, Migration and Live-in Factories in Ahmedabad

This article interrogates live-in factory labour as a distinct feature of informalised industrial structure, an absence of state regulation and an outcome of kinship-based internal migration processes and labour precariousness. It also demonstrates the fallacy of analysing living arrangements of migrant workers as undifferentiated structural artefacts and highlights the underlying social relational dynamics. It argues that suboptimal wages and terms of employment embedded in highly asymmetrical relations between employer and worker mediated through labour contractors and organised on caste, ethnicity and regional lines dictate the persistence of the system of in-factory living of workers. Such a living arrangement represents a distinct configuration of urban employment that allows firms to have greater control over workers’ lives to extract surplus value and determine their relations with the city. Thus, the article posits that migration, informal workplaces and informal labour relations converge together to create certain hyper-precarious occupational niches reserved for workers from particularly marginalised communities. Apart from debt bondage, a phenomenon which has received significant scholarly attention over the years, on-site accommodation is used by employers to keep vulnerable migrant workers in these niches.

WHAT CHANGED IN PERSONAL DEBT ENFORCEMENT SINCE ANCIENT TIMES?

Debt default has various adverse effects on the parties of a loan transaction, namely the debtor, lender, market, and society. Many mechanisms have been developed for debt enforcement since ancient times. Unfortunately, the sanctions used in enforcement, especially for personal debts, have always been quite harsh. This paper evaluates the instruments used in personal debt enforcement. It presents that some sanctions used in ancient societies are still utilized in modern economies. While the traditional insolvency regulations focused only on protecting the lender by disregarding the humanitarian aspect, current laws also aim at the relief of defaulted individuals. Although there is no more death penalty and slavery, and are too few imprisonment practices today, the ancient instrument of seizing assets is still an essential sanction with some exemptions. Debt bondage is also not employed nowadays. However, confiscating the individuals’ future income may be considered a modern form of debt bondage.

Ancient labor satisfied, exploited, and relieved, expressed in the modern era

AbstractLabor faces a universal process of increasing exploitation as the following processes converge: Labor is increasingly divorced from a community purpose; the community's economy becomes privatized, which leads to debt bondage and the loss of personal land or availability of land for personal use. This process is repeated from early records of 10,000 BC to the present day. In ancient times, a wise ruler would respond to widespread debt bondage by canceling private debts for the sake of the community. However, there are now no wise rulers on the horizon to cancel debts. This paper may give those who labor, inspiration to continue their struggle for wealth distribution equity.

Debt Bondage and Seasonal Migration: A Study of Western Odisha, India

The purpose of the study is to investigate the causes of distressed migration in western Odisha, India, as well as how the economic system is affected by debt bondage. It studies the causes of the seasonal migration of debt bondage utilising the survey. The data are analysed using a binary choice model, and the results suggest that seasonal migrants are more likely to come from impoverished, socially disadvantaged, less educated, indebted and landless households. It suggests the identification of forward and backward linkages between diverse economic activity as well as the creation of job opportunities while deciding on public policy for this region.

The effect of inflation and interest rates on number of pawn customers at PT Pegadaian Daya branch office

PT Pegadaian is a state-owned credit institution that has a specific objective as a distributor of loan money based on pawn law which is aimed at preventing the practice of debt bondage, illegal pawnshops, usury, and other unfair loans. This research aims to see the effect of inflation and interest rates on the growth of the number of pawn customers at PT. Pegadaian Daya branch, Makassar City, South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. This research was conducted at the PT. Pegadaian Daya branch office, Makassar, Indonesia. The population in this study were all pawn customers of the PT Pegadaian Daya branch, where the author took 96 samples using the Lemeshow method. Data collection was carried out using a questionnaire distributed to consumers using the Random Sampling method. The research results found that both inflation and interest rates did not have a significant effect on the number of pawn customers at PT Pegadaian Daya Branch office.

Precarious Employment and Bonded Labor: Assessment from Agriculture Sector of Punjab (Pakistan)

Despite strict constitutional provisions and laws existing against bonded labor, the situation is still plagued by this contemporary form of slavery in Pakistan—the trends of bonded labor historically associated with numerous sectors where laborers have to bear precarious employment circumstances. The International Labor Organization estimates that more than 9.5 individuals are forced to engage in bonded labor due to debt bondage, meager employment opportunities, and the absence of adequate implementation of policies in the South Asian region. The prevalence of bounded labor is the product of unawareness, poverty, unavailability of basic human needs, social exclusion, and, above all, the failure of governments to eliminate the practices. This primary study covers three administrative divisions of Punjab, and data was collected through multistage simple random sampling techniques. The interview schedule was used as a tool of data collection and study findings revealed that a considerable proportion of agriculture laborers worked in bounded circumstances. In contrast, the government's writ regarding implementing bounded labor laws is very poor. Due to this unattended situation, agricultural laborers have to face a large number of issues that become significant reasons for morbidity and mortality every year, especially among women and children belonging to these bounded laborers.

Examining factors predicting sexual exploitation among victims of human trafficking

The primary aim of this study is to investigate the factors predicting sexual exploitation among victims of human trafficking, specifically examining how traffickers’ means of control, types of sexual services, nature of recruiter relationships and female age groups play a role in this phenomenon. The data analysed spanned from 2002 to 2019 and were sourced from anonymised public data provided by the Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative (CTDC), a global hub collecting information from counter-trafficking organisations worldwide. Utilising a binary logistic regression approach, the study identified that traffickers employ various means of control, such as debt bondage, taking earnings, threats, sexual abuse, false promises, use of psychoactive substances, exploitation of children, threat of law enforcement and withholding necessities, aligning with Biderman's Theory of Coercion. Additionally, victims experience prostitution, pornography and private sexual services, often recruited by intimate partners and friends. Furthermore, the study revealed that young women aged 30 years and above were less likely to experience sexual exploitation compared to younger girls.

Surplus population in-situ

Abstract The article follows how migrant brick kiln molders are affected and adapt to short and long periods of suspension of work. In brick kilns near Delhi, involuntary idle time is revealed as an important modality of surplus extraction. While idleness is prevalent within many forms of work, idle time in the brick kilns operates at the intersection of other relations, namely, piece-rate wages, debt bondage, and capital's control over social reproduction space and time. It enables capital to flexibly move workers in and out of paid labor while extracting unpaid work and acts as an in-situ mode of rendering workers relative surplus population. Through enacting literal wagelessness and perpetuating wageless life, the article reads idle time as a time regime of capital, breaching and producing instabilities within workers’ life and leisure.

Debt Bondage in Late Period Egypt (8th – 5th Century BC)

Abstract This paper argues, in contrast to some previous scholarship, that debt bondage was not practiced in Egypt’s Late Period (c. 8th–5th centuries BC). The phenomena of self-sales into slavery and the inclusion of children in lists of security in loan contracts have been offered as evidence of debt bondage in past studies: in the former, arguing that self-sales were a means to satisfy debts; in the latter, that seizure of children into bondage was precipitated by default on a debt. But there is no evidence for these manifestations of debt bondage in practice. In an examination of all relevant self-sales and loan contracts of the period, it can be shown that in no case was a person seized for security or in distraint, and that self-sales did not occur specifically as a result of debtor default. In practice, creditors likely pursued punitive measures such as fine or high interest rather than the potentially expensive and troublesome seizure of debtors. The conditional clauses regarding seizure or distraint reflected in loan documents must thus be regarded as notional rather than actionable, more representative of the social rather than financial capital at stake when one defaulted on a debt. Excluding debt bondage from the Egyptian socio-economic landscape of the period opens the discussion to the implications for social practice, family life, and credit systems.

Orchestrating self-empowerment in tribal India: Debt bondage, land rights, and the strategic uses of spirituality

Spirituality strategically enables self-empowerment in a clandestine movement of Adivasis which this paper calls ‘the Programme’. To explain how social movements and action organisations can orchestrate spirituality, this paper examines how the Programme helps landless rural people overcome debt bondage and gain land by employing spiritual repertoires. The paper addresses the question how, in the context of an increasingly tribalised politics in India, spiritual orchestration allows some Scheduled Tribes to make substantive economic gains, especially on debt freedom and land rights. The paper draws on an analysis of qualitative data collected through workshops, interviews and visits to villages across several Indian states, which has been anonymised to protect identities and avoid divulging sensitive information. The study finds that spirituality supports self-empowerment in three ways: first, it provides motivation and ideological reinforcement for people engaging in struggles against debt bondage and for land rights; second, it makes tribal identity more visible and helps groups make claims as indigenous owners; third, it offers groups protection from reprisals and creates platforms for engaging powerful actors. These findings are significant because, for activists and scholars who work with subaltern groups in India or other contexts, they demonstrate that the orchestration of spirituality can strengthen action repertoires for self-empowerment and help groups secure or protect economic and social gains. The paper adds insights to research on social movements and organisations on how to strengthen the ‘weapons of the weak’; it contributes empirical knowledge about how strategies to overcome debt and exploitation can succeed; and it underscores the importance of protecting freedom of religion and belief in development practice.

The ugly side of construction: modern slavery in the 2022 FIFA World Cup program

Modern slavery is an illegal and unethical practice that is widespread across several sectors, including construction. This article investigates the mechanisms and motivations for employing modern slaves in construction projects and the role of “political will” in fighting it. To this end, using a cross-sectional single case study, the article examines the case of Qatar’s construction of the infrastructure for the 2022 FIFA World Cup—a large construction program in which modern slavery has been extensively documented. Our theoretical lens is the Fraud Triangle Theory (opportunity, pressure, and rationalization), which is rarely used in construction management but is useful for investigating illegal or unethical phenomena. The findings document the various factors contributing to modern slavery, including the kafala system, confiscated passports, debt bondage, contract substitution, salary abuse, program time constraints, cash flow shortage, and weak internal control systems. This article’s key novel theoretical contributions relate to identifying why modern slavery occurs in construction projects using the Fraud Triangle Theory and highlighting the importance of “political will” in fighting modern slavery worldwide.

PERBANDINGAN PENGATURAN HUKUM DALAM KUHP LAMA DAN BARU BAGI ANAK YANG MENJADI KORBAN PERDAGANGAN ORANG

The crime of trafficking in persons (TPPO) is an extraordinary crime that must be eradicated together. Anyone can become a victim, be it men, women, even children. This study aims to find out the form of legal arrangements for children who are victims of the crime of trafficking in persons in the old Criminal Code (KUHP) and the new Criminal Code in Law Number 1 of 2023 concerning the Criminal Code. The type of research used in this research is normative legal research. The approach used in this paper is the statutory approach and the comparative approach. The results of the study show that in the latest Criminal Code there is a detailed explanation regarding the crime of trafficking in persons, which regulates corporations, regarding the act of recruiting, transporting, harboring, sending, transferring or receiving a person, through threats of violence, use of force, kidnapping, confinement , forgery, fraud, abuse of power or position of vulnerability, debt bondage, or giving payments or benefits, as well as the minimum and maximum penalties that have been categorized in Law Number 1 of 2023.

Predatory Helpfulness: An Empirical Framework to Identify Fraudulent Tactics Used by Pimps to Recruit and Commercially Sexually Exploit Young Girls and Women

ABSTRACT Understanding how traffickers entrap and exploit young girls and women has become crucial to correctly identifying sex trafficking. Research shows that pimps use recruitment techniques of seduction, housing assistance, drugs, and emotional support as well as physical violence, debt bondage, and psychological manipulation to entrap women into commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). This pilot study posits that these seemingly dichotomous methods represent two temporal occurrences; pimps use superficially positive offers to lure young girls and women into a relationship via grooming tactics, then shift the relationship into a sexually exploitive one via recruitment tactics. This study aimed to explore this temporal sequence a two-prong process termed “predatory helpfulness.” Data for this preliminary study examined coercive control tactics, and trauma-coerced attachment in sex trafficking survivors. Participants (N = 19) were all women who had previously been pimp trafficked. Study findings strongly supported the predatory helpfulness model; 18 of the 19 participants felt their initial relationships with their pimps were positive and helpful, and 17 of the 19 participants were able to identify a distinct relational shift between this grooming stage and the recruitment stage, where CSE began. These findings help identify undetected coercive behaviors on the part of the pimp and inform criminal justice interventions and policy. Furthermore, understanding predatory helpfulness will shift the focus to the perpetrators’ behaviors, moving us toward a community that embraces and supports the victims impacted by CSE. A 12 Question Predatory Helpfulness Screener is proposed as a tool for legal actors and providers.

Upaya Pencegahan dan Penanggulangan tindak Pidana Perdagangan Orang

This trafficking crime is usually not only committed by individuals but also carried out by a group of people (corporations). This form of trafficking is related to commercial sex work and the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation includes, exploitation of prostitution by others, or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or service, slavery, or slavery-like practices, servitude or organ harvesting. The issue raised in this case is how the imposition of criminal sanctions in the Criminal Code and outside the Criminal Code and how these sanctions are related in the Human Rights Law in Law No. 39 of 1999. Based on Article 1 paragraph 1 of Law Number 21 of 2007 concerning Trafficking in Persons, the definition is the act of recruiting, transporting, sheltering, sending, transferring, or receiving a person by threat of violence, use of force, kidnapping, captivity, forgery, fraud, abuse of power or vulnerable position, debt bondage or giving payment or benefits, so as to obtain the consent of the person in control of the other person, whether carried out within countries or between countries, for the purpose of exploitation or resulting in exploitation of people. Trafficking operations were often conducted behind closed doors and operated outside the law. Traffickers quickly developed an undetectable way of working. This crime continues to grow at a rapid pace.