Caste Based Slavery.
In spite of the encompassing and seemingly progressive legislative framework, the use and abuse of Dalit bonded labourers in India remains endemic.
The Indian Bonded Labour System Abolition Act of 1976 prohibits any service arising out of debt, including forced labour and bonded labour. The legal definition of ‘the bonded labour system’ recognises force as including not only physical or legal elements, but also including deprivation of alternative choices, economic circumstances, and a derived compulsion to choose a particular course of action, such as providing underpaid or unpaid labour
Gender and bonded labour
Patriarchal systems confine women to certain types of occupations, such as domestic work, silk farming, carpet making and weaving. Young girls are commonly recruited to work in spinning mills in India in return for the cost of their marriage or a dowry payment. The parents often wait several years before receiving the money, which is usually less than initially agreed upon.
Employment
Those who are employed as bonded labourers in South Asia are predominantly Dalits, also known as ‘untouchables’. According to an Anti Slavery International report, the vast majority of bonded labourers (around 90%) are predominantly from scheduled castes and minority groups.
Forced labour in agriculture
Agriculture accounts for approximately 64 percent of the entire population’s workforce and employs far more bonded labourers than all other industries and services in India together, according to a Human Rights Watch report. Conditions for bonded agricultural labourers are among the harshest. The work is grueling, days are extremely long, and payment is nominal and may consist of two sole meals a day with a yearly set of clothing.