Debt bondage

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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]

Currently, debt bondage is the most common method of enslavement, with an estimated 8.1 million people bonded to labour illegally as cited by the International Labour Organization in 2005.^[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. It is estimated that 84 to 88% of the bonded labourers in the world are in South Asia.^[4][6] 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]