Bonded Labour: A Concept Note
‘Bonded Labour’ is a form of ‘unfree’ labour generally characterised by ‘extreme forms of attachment between worker and employer’ (Frantz, 2013:1072) caused by a combination of ‘rules, regulations, ideas and practices’ (Barrientos et al, 2013:1040). Bonded labour is manifested in myriad culturally distinct ways meaning that its current conceptualisation has been debated among academic scholars and governmental bodies alike. In the wake of the capitalist forces of neoliberal globalisation, forms of bonded labour have intensified and have transformed accordingly to fit legitimately into this new modernised marketplace (Frantz, 2013:1073). It is a real humanitarian crisis whereby exploitation is routinely disguised and justified to the extent that the popular perception of these exploitative and conspicuous employments is that it is just another ‘acceptable’ form of labour.
People engaged in bonded labour usually pledge their services to pay off a debt to their employer, insofar that it is most consistently regarded as ‘’debt bondage’’ (Frantz, 2013:1077). Indebtedness is the root of the system (Upadhaya, 2004) and is the fundamental reason why these labourers comply with the obligation to be entrapped at the worksite, which is often a legal condition of employment (Breman, 2010:49). This debt usually comes from the cost imparted on an employer to bring an employee into their recruitment. This may include the cost of visas, flights and other fees imposed on them by brokers who mediate the employment of migrant workers, the dominate demographic in the global bonded labour workforce.
It is important to understand that not all employment with debt repayment is debt bondage, only when this debt is accompanied by other exploitative and regulatory measures (Jordan, 2011:6). This is exemplified by cases such as Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong, who are regularly underpaid and forced to work overtime without compensation, occasionally outside their employers’ home, all of which is ‘illegal’ according to the government approved contracts which bond them for two years. Such actions are habitually normalised, particularly in cases where poor and migrant workers are clearly vulnerable and accept these exploitative and controlling measures out of the necessity to counter their economic depravity (Barrientos et al. 2010:1039).
Monetary debt is only part of the dynamics of labour bondage. Oftentimes, workers are bound in multiple ways: by monetary debt, contractual regulations and other less customary forms of debt (Barrientos et al, 2013:1040) that ensure the ‘substantive unfreedoms of the labour force’ (ibid.). Contracts are a distinguishingly common feature of contemporary bonded labour, especially when migrant workers are prevalent. In Jordan, and other Gulf countries, this is facilitated by the Kafala (sponsorship) system that binds workers in two-year contracts which are excessively hard to escape from (Frantz, 2013). Neeta, a Sri Lankan domestic worker in Jordan, went to extreme measures to escape to the embassy by jumping from a second-floor window after she was countlessly beaten and was raped by her employer (Frantz, 2013:1081). Even if workers manage to escape, some employers control them even further by confiscating their passports, a technically illegal act, constraining their ability to leave the country all together (Barrientos et al. 2010:1040).
This excessive control, and occasional violence, inherent in cases of contractual bonded labour has lead Bales (2012) to categorise bonded labour as the most common form of ‘new slavery’ or ‘contract slavery’. He goes beyond the traditional conception that ‘slavery is a complete system of ownership’ (Jordan, 2012:2) by suggesting that workers are ‘slaves’ due to the imposition of ‘complete physical control’ by the employer (Bales, 2012:20), as shown by the aforementioned ethnographic examples. This problematically suggests a universality of ‘complete control’ in bonded labour, which is not the case as the level of freedom varies between places and even between individual employers.
Moreover, the use of the word ‘slavery’, in a time where slavery is outlawed everywhere, undermines the hegemonic normalisation of bonded labour as a highly visible, state-sanctioned and ‘acceptable’ form of labour which is neither ‘unprotected’ nor ‘unlawful’ (Calvao, 2016:453). Bonded labour is rarely considered a crime because the contractual element strategically legitimises the practices which consequently become integral to the culture and economy (Jordan, 2011:6 and Bales, 2012:26), as is the case with the Kafala system. In the context of the economy and the detrimental effects of neoliberal structural adjustment programmes, international migration and subsequent remittance flows has benefited both the host and the origin countries in terms of development (Khanal and Todorova, 2019: 515). Origin countries are particularly put in a challenging position, drawn between protesting the rights and well-being of their nationals and ensuring enough remittance-capital is inflowing, which is ultimately their priority.
Rather than ‘new slavery’, Breman (2010) introduces the term ‘neo-bondage’ to better represent modern bonded labour. It is characterised as ‘neo’ because of the monetisation and contractual elements which specify a shorter time period for bondage (48); the most significant feature distinguishing contemporary and traditional forms of bonded labour (Barrientos et al, 2013:1039). Conceptualising contemporary bonded labour as ‘neo-bondage’ reflects more ‘conceptual clarity’ (Jordan, 2011:10) by moving away from the tendency to conflate modern manifestations of bonded labour with traditional, historically weighted, forms of unfree labour, which may ‘inadvertently blanket important ethnographic differences’ (Calvao, 2016:452). Any conceptualisation of this phenomenon thus ‘requires a specific response’ to enable a more valid representation (Jordan, 2011:10).
A fundamental critique of ‘‘bonded labour’’, ‘’new slavery’’ and ‘’neo-bondage’’ is that central to all is the notion of ‘free’ and ‘unfree’ labour. This is misleading as it evokes a ‘false dichotomy’ (Frantz, 2013:1072) and raises the question of whether any form of labour can be analytically ‘free’ and thus external to discursive control. It is potentially unhelpful because it inherently suggests that the practice is unlawful or unregulated, which is evidently not the case with many contemporary forms being actively sanctioned by the government. There should also be greater distinguishing between debt bondage, labour with debt and other forms of bonded labour which could include slavery or trafficking.
To use the general term ‘bonded labour’ risks undermining the differences between forms of this phenomenon and risks reducing the experience of those implicated as merely part of a misrepresentative conglomerate. The growing international and humanitarian awareness of these questionable practices means that this term is used too liberally without essential cultural contextualization. It is certainly not a useless term as it does successfully illuminate the unethical nature of some labour. Though, it does need some analytical progression and specification to ensure it is up to date with the rapid neoliberalization of the world and to avoid the misrecognition of culturally unique forms of bonded labour.
Bibliography
Bales, K. (2012) ‘The New Slavery’, in Bales K. Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. University of California Press.
Barrientos, S. Kothari, U. Phillips, N. (2013) ‘Dynamics of Unfree Labour in the Contemporary Global Economy’, The Journal of Development Studies, 49(8). pp. 1037–1041. DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2013.780043
Breman, J. (2010) ‘Neo-Bondage: A Fieldwork-based Account’, International Labor and Working-Class History, 78. pp. 48–62. DOI: 10.1017/S0147547910000116.
Calvao, F. (2016) ‘Unfree Labor’, Annual review of Anthropology, 45. pp. 451–467. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-102215–100307
Frantz, E. 2013. Jordan’s unfree workforce: State-sponsored bonded labor in the Arab region. The Journal of Development Studies. 49(8). pp. 1072–1087. DOI: DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2013.780042.
Khanal, K. and Todorova, z. (2019) ‘Remittances and Households in the Age of Neoliberal Uncertainty’, Journal of Economic Issues, 53(2), pp.515–522. DOI: 10.1080/00213624.2019.1603763.
Jordan, A. (2011) ‘Slavery, Forced Labor, Debt Bondage, and Human Trafficking: From Conceptual Confusion to Targeted Solutions’, Program on Human Trafficking and Forced Labour, 2, pp. 1–16. Available at: https://www.issuelab.org/resources/15356/15356.pdf (Accessed: 23 December 2019).
Upadhyaya, K. (2004) ‘Bonded Labour in South Asia: India, Nepal and Pakistan’, in van den Anker, C. Palgrave Texts in International Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp. 118–136.
Origionally a final year BA Anthropology submission to University of Sussex
