Victims of trafficking are often subjected to debt bondage. A trafficker may assist the victim in arranging travel, finding employment and accommodation and then require him or her to “work off” the debt owed for the services provided.
Typically, the individual is tricked into accepting terms which are exploitive in nature, as the combination of unlawfully low wages and unlawfully high interest rates create a situation of increasing debt that make it virtually impossible to ever earn back the amount purportedly owed to the trafficker.
Trafficked individuals are prevented from escaping their situation through debt bondage as well as retention of travel documents, violence and threats of violence against themselves or their families.
Even if the victims sense that debt-bondage is unjust, it is difficult for them to find help. Language, social, and physical barriers often keep them from obtaining assistance.
Also known as involuntary servitude, forced labour is any work or services which people are forced to do against their will under the threat of some form punishment. These workers are made more vulnerable to forced labor practices because of high rates of unemployment, poverty, crime, discrimination, corruption, political conflict, and cultural acceptance of the practice. Female victims of forced or bonded labor, especially women and girls in domestic servitude, may also face sexual exploitation as well.
Forced labour is a form of human trafficking that is often harder to identify and estimate than sex trafficking because of its hidden nature (i.e., the work may occur in a closed location such as a factory or household). The ILO has suggested six elements which, either individually or together, can indicate forced labour:
- Threats or actual physical harm;
- Restriction of movement and confinement to the workplace or to a limited area;
- Debt-bondage;
- Withholding of wages or excessive wage reductions, that violate previously made agreements;
- Retention of passports and identity documents (the workers can neither leave nor prove their identity and status);
- Threat of denunciation to the authorities where the worker is of illegal status.
Forced labour is most frequently found in labour intensive and/or under-regulated industries, such as:
- Agriculture
- Domestic work
- Construction, mining, quarrying and brick kilns
- Manufacturing, processing and packaging
- Prostitution and sexual exploitation
These industries tend to be characterised by ‘3D’ work – dangerous, difficult and dirty – and are often similar in their nature. They typically involve low pay and low skill levels.
