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Title | Date added | Template | Body | Legal status | Document type | Year | Document code | Original document | Paragraph text | Thematics | Topic(s) | Person(s) affected | Year |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 8 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | The definition of debt bondage in the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery is sufficiently broad to cover the situation of workers trapped in debt bondage in systemic, archaic, feudal systems of slave-labour exploitation, as well as that of migrant workers from developing countries who leave their countries accruing debt to cover the costs associated with recruitment. Debt bondage is closely related to a number of forms of exploitation, including forced labour, the abuse of migrant workers, trafficking, and the worst forms of child labour. It has been observed that debt bondage is an area in which the relationship between trafficking and forced labour practices is particularly strong. Debt is considered to be a key source of vulnerability to trafficking and is one of the mechanisms used to force victims to work in exploitative or abusive conditions. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 12 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Zimbabwe have been identified as being home to adults and children who are subjected to debt bondage or trafficking while working in the mining sector. Forced labour in the mining sector has been reported to involve multinational corporations that work on the extraction of precious metals or minerals. In the Kivu provinces in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, debt bondage has been reported as one of the most common forms of contemporary slavery in mines. Workers contract debts to purchase food, supplies and working tools when they start working and continue to accrue debt in order to meet their basic needs. Most of the workers in debt bondage in North Kivu province come from other eastern provinces. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 13 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | It has also been reported that indigenous peoples in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are subjected to practices similar to slavery, including debt bondage, by the Bantu majority. Indigenous peoples are often trapped in debt bondage by Bantu "masters" who often sell them goods such as clothes, food and medicine at inflated prices and add exorbitant rates of interest if the goods are not paid for on time and who demand their work in return. It is also a common practice for the Bantu to create new debts in order to sustain the exploitation of bonded labourers. For example, it has been reported that they provide food to indigenous children and then add inflated costs to the debts of parents. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 7 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In situations of debt bondage, the power imbalance between the employer (or creditor) and the worker often increases the worker's vulnerability to further human rights abuses. Employers and creditors are reported to adjust interest rates, to make further deductions arbitrarily as penalties for perceived poor performance, and/or to charge high prices for basic goods or working tools resulting in an increase of the debt and the perpetuation of deeply exploitative situations. Furthermore, bonded labourers are often subjected to physical and psychological abuse, to abusive conditions of work, such as long working hours, to dangerous and unhealthy work, and to severe restrictions on their freedom of movement, including in relation to changing employment. Children in debt bondage can be particularly vulnerable to additional violations of their human rights, as they lack access to education as well as to opportunities to participate in cultural and recreational activities. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 32 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In South Asia, several countries have provisions in their national constitutions from which further enacted legislation on debt bondage flows directly. For example, article 23 of the Constitution of India prohibits trafficking in human beings, begar (debt bondage) and other similar forms of forced labour, as an enforceable right. Article 11 of the Constitution of Pakistan prohibits slavery and forced labour. Article 29 of the Constitution of Nepal prohibits debt bondage and other forms of forced labour and specifies that an employer contravening the prohibition must pay compensation. In Brazil, article 243 of the Constitution provides for the expropriation of rural or urban property in which the use of slave labour has been identified and its consignment to agrarian reform and social housing. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. B. | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | [Recommendations to Member States:] Provide training and sensitize law enforcement and labour officials at the national and local levels on the identification of persons in debt bondage and on the implementation of legislation on debt bondage if it exists and other relevant labour laws to tackle debt bondage. States should ensure the enforcement of legislation on debt bondage and other relevant laws to tackle debt bondage, and should ensure that these apply to all workers and all sectors of the economy. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. B. | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | [Recommendations to Member States:] Undertake national and/or regional surveys to identify victims of debt bondage; these should include disaggregated information on those affected, by age, gender, nationality, caste and ethnic group, as well as information about the industries in which debt bondage is prevalent. Such surveys should cover remote areas and informal workplaces. Data collected from such surveys should be used as the basis for the development of effective legislation, policy and programmes. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 44a | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | [Despite the efforts of various countries to eradicate and prevent debt bondage, there are still challenges in implementing adequate measures in this regard, including:] The lack of adequate enforcement of legislation on debt bondage and on workers' rights, and of other relevant legislation for the eradication of debt bondage, and in some countries the non-existence of specific legislation on debt bondage; |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 44b | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | [Despite the efforts of various countries to eradicate and prevent debt bondage, there are still challenges in implementing adequate measures in this regard, including:] The lack of implementation or absence of legal measures that could prevent reprisals against victims of debt bondage when the criminal law is being used to punish perpetrators (e.g. a summary procedure in cases of debt bondage), particularly when victims and perpetrators are part of the same community; |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 55 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | A comprehensive, human rights-based approach to tackling debt bondage must have at its centre the compliance of States with their obligations under international law and the empowerment of freed bonded labourers and people vulnerable to debt bondage. Recommendations on the implementation of such an approach are detailed below. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 24 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In Peru, debt bondage is reported to occur in the illegal logging and timber extraction industries, with mestizos (individuals of mixed colonial and indigenous descent) and indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon commonly victimized. Two forms of forced labour in logging activities have been identified in the Amazon. The first involves indigenous workers being contracted to perform activities in their own communities, whereas the second sees indigenous and mestizo workers being hired to work in logging camps owned by timber bosses. Enforcement of the arrangements between workers and employers is in some cases ensured through threats and abuse, including physical violence. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 25 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In the Plurinational State of Bolivia, bonded labour has been reported among the indigenous Guaranis in the Chaco region and among indigenous workers and mestizos on sugar plantations, and in relation to the production of Brazil nuts in the northern Amazon. The indigenous Guaranis in the Chaco region are mainly involved in farming and ranching, in activities such as the production of corn, beans, cassava, plantain and fruits, and fishing and hunting. It is estimated that a large number of indigenous Guarani families in the Bolivian Chaco are subjected to debt bondage and forced labour and are thus referred to as "captive communities". Furthermore, every year during the sugar harvest, tens of thousands of indigenous workers and their families, recruited by intermediaries or contractors through the enganche recruitment system, migrate to Santa Cruz and Tarija. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 16 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In traditional forms of debt bondage in South Asia, patronage assumes an important role in the employer-employee relationship, in that the labour and the life of the debtor become collateral for the debt accrued. In some cases, such patronage perpetuates the cycle of debt from one generation to the next. However, this generational debt bondage has decreased over the years and has been replaced by a more individualized temporary and/or seasonal form of bondage that is exclusively economic and lacks the dimension of patronage. This form of debt bondage, also known as "neo-bondage", is considered to involve the seasonal movement of migrant workers within and between countries. Such workers are recruited by intermediaries who usually demand the payment of an advance and the settlement of wages at the end of the contract in exchange for their intermediation. Neo-bondage is similar to traditional forms of bondage, in the sense that the men, women and children vulnerable to such practices mainly belong to marginalized communities. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 35 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In Nepal, the Bonded Labour (Prohibition) Act, 2058 (2002) abolished bonded labour in the country. The 2002 Act makes null and void all the debts contracted by persons in debt bondage and requires the establishment of freed bonded labourer rehabilitation and monitoring committees in a number of districts. The 2002 Act provides for penalties and fines for perpetrators. In 2010, the Ministry of Land Reform and Management presented a haliya system (prohibition) bill, setting out the rights of freed haliya, and establishing a rehabilitation fund, a case litigation and appeal process, and provision for punishment. However, the bill has not yet passed into law. In May 2011, the Government issued the "Freed haliya rehabilitation and monitoring guidelines", which mandated district-level task forces to update the information on freed haliya and to distribute identification cards to them within six months of their being identified. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 38 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In Germany, subjecting a person under the age of 21 to debt bondage is penalized under the Criminal Code (section 233 (1)) with a term of imprisonment of between 6 months and 10 years. In Australia, the offence of debt bondage is penalized by 4 years' imprisonment, under section 271.8 of the Criminal Code. Furthermore, the Government of Australia has adopted the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking and Slavery 2015-2019, which includes actions to combat debt bondage. Other measures include the setting up in 2015 of Task Force Cadena to tackle serious incidents of illegal work, visa fraud and worker exploitation, with a focus on industries such as food production and agriculture, and the establishment of the Ministerial Working Group Protecting Vulnerable Visa Holders to consider policy options to protect vulnerable foreign workers in Australia. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 44e | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | [Despite the efforts of various countries to eradicate and prevent debt bondage, there are still challenges in implementing adequate measures in this regard, including:] The ineffectiveness or non-existence of adequate mechanisms to identify bonded labourers, including the lack of ongoing identification programmes conducted in the formal and informal sectors and the lack of particular methods for identifying bonded labourers. Other challenges in this regard include the insufficient resources allocated for the purposes of identification; the non-proactive attitude by officials to seeking out and finding cases of debt bondage; the lack of data, which could be obtained through surveys to identify the number of persons in debt bondage and the sectors where it is the most prevalent; and the failure by the authorities to recognize new forms of debt bondage, such as seasonal debt bondage; |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 44g | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | [Despite the efforts of various countries to eradicate and prevent debt bondage, there are still challenges in implementing adequate measures in this regard, including:] The absence of measures to specifically target the factors that cause or facilitate debt bondage, such as poverty, illiteracy, lack of access to decent work, social exclusion and discrimination. Also, the absence of measures to address cultural and economic pressures in some countries (e.g. in relation to marriage) and to ensure access to education, health and social security; |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 37 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In Mauritania, Act No. 2015-031 of 10 September 2015 criminalizes slavery and punishes slavery-like practices including debt bondage. The Act provides for the possibility of third parties (those who have benefited from legal personality for at least five years) taking legal action and being a party in the proceedings (section 23). |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. B. | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | [Recommendations to Member States:] Ratify all relevant international instruments prohibiting slavery and slavery-like practices and other relevant international instruments pertaining to the eradication of debt bondage, including the Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29). States should align their national legislation with these international standards, in order to adequately criminalize debt bondage and provide adequate penalties for violations. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 40 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | People in debt bondage tend to have experienced a low level of access to education, which frequently results in illiteracy and innumeracy. This leads to a lack of alternative employment options and makes them vulnerable to exploitation from their employers. Illiteracy and innumeracy allow employers or recruiters to manipulate loans, interest rates and wages. Poor remuneration in previous employment is considered to be a major cause of debt bondage, as workers are forced to take loans or advances to cover basic subsistence needs. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 54 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Under the due diligence standard, States have an obligation to exercise a measure of care in preventing and responding to the acts of private individuals. More specifically, they have a duty to protect people in debt bondage by means of adequate procedures to identify them, to provide short-term and long-term rehabilitation that prevents revictimizations, to enact legislation on debt bondage and to ensure that victims have access to justice and remedies. Furthermore, States have an obligation to prevent debt bondage through prevention of discrimination, regulation of wages, enforcement of labour law and regulation of recruitment practices, and by protecting persons in debt bondage against violations in the context of business activities. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 26 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In Paraguay, debt bondage has reportedly been observed among members of various indigenous ethnic groups on traditional low-technology cattle farms located in remote areas of the Chaco region. Casual workers are hired for changa work - short-term work clearing fields or bringing in the harvest, and receive very low pay or no pay for their work after employers have deducted amounts from their wages corresponding to the items purchased on credit at the estate shop. Permanent workers are employed as playeros (ranch hands) to perform a variety of tasks, such as cutting wood or milking the cows, and in some cases due to the debts they have contracted are directly or indirectly held against their will. ILO estimated in 2005 that a total of 8,000 indigenous workers could be victims of debt bondage in Paraguay. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 27 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In Brazil, the highest incidence of what is commonly referred to as "slave labour", which includes the practice of debt bondage, is found in industries associated with the production of commodities such as live cattle, soybean, cotton, sugar and coffee. Other products identified with slave labour include vegetable charcoal and ethanol. Some of the regions reported to have a high incidence of slave labour include the states of Pará, Mato Grosso, Maranhão, Tocantins and Bahia, which also have been identified as states with a high incidence of violence and deforestation for cattle ranching. Labour intermediaries known as gatos usually recruit workers by offering them advance payments and free transport to the work site. Once they have arrived, the labourers, most of whom are males aged between 18 and 34, become indebted, as a result of items they buy on credit at the canteens run by the employer, and the charges for working tools, accommodation and transport. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 28 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Debt bondage in the context of labour migration and trafficking is a trend that can be seen across a number of countries and sectors. Migrant workers often become trapped in situations of bondage by borrowing money at exorbitant interest rates to pay recruitment fees or by taking an advance payment from intermediaries to secure work in the country of destination. Once migrants arrive in the country of destination they are often forced to work in harsh conditions to pay back debt they have accrued. Furthermore, workers are commonly subjected to threats and physical abuse, and in some cases face severe restrictions to their freedom of movement. The vast majority of people trafficked to countries in North America, Europe and the Middle East and to other developed countries are migrant workers who are trafficked into a variety of jobs including domestic work, agricultural work, prostitution and factory work and are often controlled through debt bondage and other mechanisms. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 29 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In the Middle East, migrant workers represent a significant portion of the labour force in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, particularly in the private sector. The individual sponsorship system, known as the kafalah system, which ties the employment and residency of a worker to a specific employer, is considered to be an arrangement that creates dependency of the worker on the employer and encourages abuses, including debt bondage. The fees charged by recruitment agencies for travel arrangements, labour contracts and other services trap migrant workers into bondage in their home countries. Consequently, migrant workers are often indebted upon arrival in the country of destination. Furthermore, practices such as the confiscation of passports, the non-payment, underpayment or delayed payment of wages, and contract substitution are considered to contribute to debt bondage. Those who are most susceptible to debt bondage in these countries are Asians who work as migrant labourers and domestic servants. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 41 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Bonded labourers commonly belong to minority groups vulnerable to discrimination, such as certain racial groups, women, indigenous people, people of "low" caste and migrant workers. The discrimination suffered by these groups frequently prevents them from accessing education, health care, clean water and credit. Furthermore, demands from bonded labourers for fair treatment, or their resistance to exploitation, often cause them to face social sanctions and boycotts that further restrict their possibility of overcoming discrimination or of leaving the situation of bondage. The discrimination faced by bonded labourers comes in some cases not only from society at large but also from other members of the same minority groups. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 42 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Gender inequalities and discrimination make women vulnerable to bondage, as they are often excluded from the labour market and consequently are involved in unskilled and poorly paid jobs. Furthermore, discrimination against children belonging to minority groups is a factor that limits their full access to education and thus increases their vulnerability to exploitation. Many bonded labourers, including women and children, face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, which significantly increases their vulnerability to debt bondage and at the same time limits their opportunities for escaping such abuse. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 43 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Precarious labour migration has been identified as a driver of debt bondage. Migrant workers are also often vulnerable to exploitation because of barriers they face in accessing the protections provided to nationals of the country to which they have migrated and because of generalized social hostility towards foreigners. The choices made by migrants about securing employment abroad are often based on misinformation and false promises concerning conditions of employment in destination countries. A lack of financial literacy can lead to a poor understanding of the loans taken out to pay fees, and a lack of alternatives in their home countries can incentivize migrants to take out loans on which extortionate rates of interest are charged. Furthermore, a lack of effective regulation of the recruitment sector, unethical practices by unscrupulous recruiters, late payment or the withholding of payment by employers, and exorbitant charges for services can worsen situations of debt bondage. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 15 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | The practice of debt bondage in South Asia is reported to be widespread, particularly in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. The existence of debt bondage has also been reported in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. However the majority of those in debt bondage are reported to be in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, despite the specific prohibition on such practices within the legal frameworks of these countries. Those who are trapped in debt bondage in South Asia are reportedly predominantly Dalits, persons of "low" caste, indigenous peoples or members of other minority groups. |
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Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 44d | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | [Despite the efforts of various countries to eradicate and prevent debt bondage, there are still challenges in implementing adequate measures in this regard, including:] The limited access to justice and to effective remedies, which is often linked to the discrimination that bonded labourers suffer. Members of minority groups frequently continue to encounter discrimination, harassment and violence when seeking to access the justice system; |
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