Modern Day Slavery: The Unending Story Of Bonded Labour

Sabeeh Akhter, LLB, Government Law College, Mumbai

Simran Undre, LLB, Government Law College, Mumbai

ABSTRACT

Bonded labour is a serious inhuman condition prevalent in many parts of Africa and Asia. It goes against the conventions and treaties signed by most of the Nations almost centuries ago but still the problem exists.

With context to India serious laws are in place with constitutional sanctions and series of judgement by the Apex court of The nation but nevertheless the problem is continuous also old social identities such as that of caste and tribe do overlap the identity of a bonded labour.

The data put forth here are from 3(1996, 2004, 2018) different decades which is concrete evidence of the severity of the problem.

We have analysed the term slavery and how bonded labour is a modern day slavery both in International and National context. We then took a glimpse of the development of laws in the International and National arena and the rehabilitation programs by the Union Government and role of National Human Rights Commission. Our work was supported by data and reports as mentioned earlier. The question also was, despite the proper laws how are they still operating and in what sectors details of the same are well provided in here.

The inference was that though declining trends in the past decade, the problem has not yet been eradicated mainly due to lack of proper sensitisation, surveys and cut in budgets of rehabilitation.

Keywords: Bonded labour, Forced labour, Restricted liberty, Beggar