Debt bondage

Part of a series on
Forced labour and slavery
Contemporary Child labour Child soldiers Conscription CSEC Debt bondage India Forced marriage Bride buying Child marriage Wife selling Forced prostitution Human trafficking Child China Cybersex Europe Fraud factory India United States Involuntary servitude ... in 21st-century jihadism ... in Africa Peonage Penal labour Sex trafficking China Europe United States Sexual slavery Wage slavery
Historical Antiquity Babylonia Egypt Greece Rome Medieval Europe Ancillae Black Sea slave trade Byzantine Empire Genoese slave trade Kholop Prague slave trade Serfs History In Russia Emancipation Thrall Venetian slave trade Balkan slave trade Muslim world Baqt Barbary Coast slave trade pirates Sack of Baltimore Slave raid of Suðuroy Turkish Abductions Bukhara slave trade Concubinage history Ma malakat aymanukum Avret Pazarları Harem Abbasid harem Ottoman Imperial Harem Safavid imperial harem Qajar harem Jarya/Cariye Odalisque Qiyan Umm al-walad Circassian slave trade Contract of manumission Crimean slave trade Kafala system Khazar slave trade Khivan slave trade Ottoman Empire Avret Pazarları Saqaliba Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate Slavery in al-Andalus Slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate Slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate Volga Bulgarian slave trade 21st century Atlantic slave trade Brazil Bristol Database Dutch Middle Passage Nantes New France Panyarring Spanish Empire Slave Coast Thirteen colonies Topics and practice Blackbirding Child soldiers Conscription Devshirme Ghilman Mamluk Coolie Corvée labour Drapetomania Dysaesthesia aethiopica Field slaves in the United States Treatment Gladiator Gladiatrix House slaves Planter class Proslavery thought Saqaliba Seasoning Slave market Slave Power Slave raiding Slavocracy Voluntary slavery White slavery Naval Galley slave Impressment Pirates Shanghaiing Slave ship
By country or region Sub-Saharan Africa Contemporary Africa Trans-Saharan slave trade Red Sea slave trade Indian Ocean slave trade Zanzibar slave trade Angola Chad Comoros Ethiopia Mali Mauritania Niger Nigeria Seychelles Somalia Somali slave trade South Africa Sudan Zanzibar North and South America Pre-Columbian America Aztec Americas indigenous U.S. Natives United States field slaves female contemporary maps partus prison labour slave codes treatment interregional proslavery sexual slavery The Bahamas Canada Caribbean Barbados British Virgin Islands Trinidad Code Noir Latin America Brazil Lei Áurea Colombia Cuba Haiti revolt Restavek (Encomienda) Puerto Rico East, Southeast, and South Asia Haruwa-charuwa Human trafficking in Southeast Asia Bhutan Brunei China Booi Aha Eunuchs Laogai penal system India Debt bondage Chukri System Bawi system Indonesia Japan comfort women Karayuki-san Korea Kwalliso Nobi Malaysia Maldives Slavery in the Mongol Empire Thailand Yankee princess Vietnam Australia and Oceania Australia Human trafficking Blackbirding Slave raiding in Easter Island Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea Blackbirding in Polynesia Europe and North Asia Sex trafficking in Europe United Kingdom Penal Labour Slavery Denmark Dutch Republic Germany in World War II Malta Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Spain Sweden North Africa and West Asia Afghanistan Bacha bazi Algeria Bahrain Egypt Human trafficking in the Middle East Iran Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Palestine Saudi Arabia Syria Tunisia Qatar Yemen United Arab Emirates
Religion Bible Christianity Catholicism Mormonism Islam Judaism Baháʼí Faith
Opposition and resistance Abolitionism U.K. U.S. Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90 Temporary Slavery Commission 1926 Slavery Convention Committee of Experts on Slavery Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery Abolitionists Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention Anti-Slavery International Blockade of Africa U.K. U.S. Colonization Liberia Sierra Leone Compensated emancipation Freedman Manumission Freedom suit Slave Power Underground Railroad songs Slave rebellion Slave Trade Acts International law Third Servile War 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom Abolition of slave trade in Persian gulf [fa]
Related Common law Forced labour Fugitive slaves laws convention Great Dismal Swamp maroons Indentured servitude List of slaves owners last survivors of American slavery List of slavery-related memorials and museums Slave catcher Slave marriages in the United States Slave narrative films songs Slave name Slave patrol Slave Route Project breeding court cases Washington Jefferson J.Q. Adams Lincoln Emancipation Proclamation 40 acres Freedmen's Bureau Iron bit Emancipation Day
v t e

Debt bondage, also known as debt slavery, bonded labour, or peonage, is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation. Where the terms of the repayment are not clearly or reasonably stated, or where the debt is excessively large, the person who holds the debt has thus some control over the laborer, whose freedom depends on the undefined or excessive debt repayment.^[1] The services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services' duration may be undefined, thus allowing the person supposedly owed the debt to demand services indefinitely.^[2] Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation.^[2]

In 2021, the International Labour Organization estimated that, of the 27.6 million people currently participating in forced labour, 20.9%, or about 5.8 million, were in debt bondage.^[3] Debt bondage has been described by the United Nations as a form of "modern day slavery", and the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery seeks to abolish the practice.^[2][4][5]

The practice is still prevalent primarily in South Asia and parts of Western and Southern Africa, although most countries in these regions are parties to the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery. Lack of prosecution or insufficient punishment of this crime are the leading causes of the practice as it exists at this scale today.^[6][7]