There is no one way in which children are bonded, no one story that includes the pain, the suffering and the exploitation. Each community, each family that is tied to bonded labor has its own problems.

The dynamics of bonded labor are different in rural communities and in the urban centers. Each industry that uses bonded labor has its own mechanisms.

However, there are some aspects that almost always exist.

The children that are bonded almost always come from among the weakest and most oppressed communities in India. They are usually from schedule caste and schedule tribes. They are almost always from sections of people who have had little say even in local political processes.

These are families that have almost no access to small loans. Often they are landless peasants, laborers or artisans. Sometimes they are small farmers. Their needs are in hundreds of Rupees. Sometimes they need these small amounts to take care of a family member who is ill, or a death in the family. Sometimes, they need these amounts for marriage. Often they need the amount for some initial outlay in their farm, their house or their equipment.

In the absence of access to loans from a bank, their only resource is the local money lender. Loans have extremely high interest rates – usually over 10% per month. And the surety for the loan is usually the labor of a child in the family.

The child is thus bonded to labor in some local industry, sometimes run by the moneylender, often run by a group that is connected to the money lender. He or she works in inhuman conditions and is often abused. Children working in the quarry industry often injure themselves and have little or no medical help. Children working in the silver industry use their bare hands to pick silver from pails of sulfuric acid. The leather industry uses another toxic and corrosive chemical – chromium. Kids working in beedi, silk or carpet industries sit in crouched positions for 8-10 hours a day, for 6-7 days a week and often experience atrophying of muscles, and stunted growth.

The child is paid between Rs 3 to Rs 10 a day, a fraction of the minimum wage that should be paid by law (which varies from state to state and is between Rs 50 to Rs 80). Sometimes, a part of the principle from the loan may be deducted based on the time the child spends working. Often, this is not the case. The child will be bonded until the parent pays back the interest and the principle of the loan. Often this takes many years.

If the child grows beyond fourteen years of age, or he or she is married off, a younger sibling will be bonded.

Thus, children are bonded for two years to four years for Rs 500 to Rs 2000 worth of loans. Based on the minimum wage, this loan should be paid off in less than a month. However, the children are enslaved for years, in complete violation of domestic laws on slavery and international laws that India has signed and ratified.

These industries have developed elaborate mechanisms to ensure that children cannot escape bonded labor, usually through immense violence, sometimes murder. NGOs and activists investigating child labor have been threatened with violence. NGOs attempting even something as seemingly harmless as part-time schools for bonded children have had to cajole and plead with those who control these industries.

The government should have a large role in protecting children from abuse. That as many as 15 million children (if not more) are exploited and their rights abused leads one to conclude that the government has failed terribly in enforcement of laws that are quite good.

Analyzing the roles of various individuals and sections involved in the process of child labor leads one to conclude that numerous efforts addressing different aspects of these dynamics is necessary to help end exploitation of children through bonded labor.

There is a high correlation between the implementation of compulsory education and the absence of child labor – both in India (specifically in Kerala) and in many other developing and developed nations. While, enforcement of compulsory education may not be solve the problem of bonded labor, it is one factor that will help alleviate the bonded labor situation.

Inaccessibility to small loans and the absence of sustainable livelihoods has also forced these communities that are among the most marginalized to the doorsteps of loan sharks. Creation of infrastructure for livelihood generation and access to small loans will help immensely in addressing bonded labor.

However, the most critical component in addressing bonded labor is enforcement of laws. That the government cannot protect 15 million of the country’s children is perhaps the most telling reflection of the state of governance. It is absolutely necessary that pressure be built that the governance machinery begin processes for enforcement of laws vis-à-vis bonded labor, and if that means that the government takes on various mafia groups and industrial lobbies then so be it. If that means that pressure be built on the working of district collectors and labor inspectors who have the direct responsibility of addressing child labor, then there is a dying need to build this pressure.

There can be no excuse for the violation and oppression of 15 million children – it is the responsibility of the government and of the people that these children be freed.

Related Articles:
There Live Enslaved Children
Molested School Girls and the Mystery of Skewed Literacy Ratios
HRW Report on Bonded Child Labor in India
Campaign Against Child Labor
South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude