Debt Bondage

A form of forced labor in which a person is compelled to work to repay a debt, real or fabricated, under terms that make the debt effectively impossible to satisfy, commonly because the value of the worker's labor is arbitrarily undervalued against the debt, because the employer imposes escalating deductions for food, housing or other necessities, or because the true terms of the debt were never clearly disclosed. Recognized under the 1956 United Nations Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery as one of four institutions and practices similar to slavery, alongside serfdom, forced marriage and the exploitation of a child's labor, debt bondage is documented by the International Labour Organization as one of the most widespread forms of modern forced labor worldwide, particularly in South Asian brick kilns, agricultural work and domestic service, where an initial cash advance or loan to a worker or their family becomes the mechanism binding them to continued, often multigenerational, unpaid or severely underpaid labor.