Debt bondage

Debt bondage is forced labor in which a person’s services secure a debt, while its terms or conditions make repayment impossible or indefinite.

Debt manipulation: The falsification or distortion of debts to control a debtor or extract labor. Inflated balances and withheld accounts can keep a worker’s obligation from ever ending.
Debt slavery in ancient Rome: Practices in ancient Rome that subjected people to servitude for unpaid debts. Roman debt servitude offers an early example of labor imposed through creditor power.
Kailash Satyarthi: An Indian activist whose work has focused on ending child labor and rescuing children from exploitation. His campaigns brought attention to children trapped in bonded labor and hazardous work.
Forced labour: Work exacted under threat of penalty and not offered voluntarily. International labor law classifies debt bondage as a form of forced labour.
Wage labor: Employment in which workers receive payment for their labor under an agreement. Wage labor is not bondage when workers can leave and are paid without coercive debt.
Wage withholding: An employer’s failure to pay wages when they are due. Withheld earnings prevent workers from using pay to reduce the claimed debt.
Nexum: An archaic Roman legal arrangement associated with a debtor’s self-pledge to a creditor. Nexum links personal debt to labor and status in early Roman law.
Bonded Labour Liberation Front: An Indian organization founded to identify and free people held in bonded labor. It has organized rescues, legal action, and rehabilitation for bonded workers.
ILO Forced Labour Convention, 1930: An International Labour Organization treaty requiring states to suppress forced or compulsory labour. It establishes a central international standard for prohibiting coerced work.
Indentured servitude: A labor contract that binds a person to service for a defined period or obligation. A fixed term differs from debt bondage whose balance or duration remains unending.

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