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Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia
Siddharth Kara's Sex Trafficking has become a critical resource for its revelations into an unconscionable business, and its detailed analysis of the trade's immense economic benefits and human cost. This volume is Kara's second, explosive study of slavery, this time focusing on the deeply entrenched and wholly unjust system of bonded labor.
Drawing on eleven years of research in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, Kara delves into an ancient and ever-evolving mode of slavery that ensnares roughly six out of every ten slaves in the world and generates profits that exceeded $17.6 billion in 2011. In addition to providing a thorough economic, historical, and legal overview of bonded labor, Kara travels to the far reaches of South Asia, from cyclone-wracked southwestern Bangladesh to the Thar desert on the India-Pakistan border, to uncover the brutish realities of such industries as hand-woven-carpet making, tea and rice farming, construction, brick manufacture, and frozen-shrimp production. He describes the violent enslavement of millions of impoverished men, women, and children who toil in the production of numerous products at minimal cost to the global market. He also follows supply chains directly to Western consumers, vividly connecting regional bonded labor practices to the appetites of the world. Kara's pioneering analysis encompasses human trafficking, child labor, and global security, and he concludes with specific initiatives to eliminate the system of bonded labor from South Asia once and for all.
Drawing on eleven years of research in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, Kara delves into an ancient and ever-evolving mode of slavery that ensnares roughly six out of every ten slaves in the world and generates profits that exceeded $17.6 billion in 2011. In addition to providing a thorough economic, historical, and legal overview of bonded labor, Kara travels to the far reaches of South Asia, from cyclone-wracked southwestern Bangladesh to the Thar desert on the India-Pakistan border, to uncover the brutish realities of such industries as hand-woven-carpet making, tea and rice farming, construction, brick manufacture, and frozen-shrimp production. He describes the violent enslavement of millions of impoverished men, women, and children who toil in the production of numerous products at minimal cost to the global market. He also follows supply chains directly to Western consumers, vividly connecting regional bonded labor practices to the appetites of the world. Kara's pioneering analysis encompasses human trafficking, child labor, and global security, and he concludes with specific initiatives to eliminate the system of bonded labor from South Asia once and for all.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published September 25, 2012
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About the author
Siddharth Kara
8 books578 followersSiddharth Kara is an author, researcher, and activist on modern slavery. Kara has written several books and reports on slavery and child labor, including the New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Cobalt Red. Kara also won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize. He has lectured at Harvard University and held a professorship at the University of Nottingham. He divides his time between Los Angeles and London.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 31, 2017
This book makes me want to buy only Fair Trade things forever. It's very academic in style and not very well geared toward casual readers, but it's comprehensive and explicit.
August 25, 2017
The value of this book lies not only in its adroit exposure of bonded labor in South Asia but in the way in which Kara explains the nature of bonded labor with both simplicity and sophistication so that, as a reader coming to the book with no knowledge of the subject matter, I was able to walk away feeling informed and enlightened. Kara also offers a model to scholars on how to introduce a moral ingredient into writings about atrocities such as slavery. Further, he demonstrates skill in investigating the systemic nature of bonded labor, using a dogged persistence to pursue and deconstruct a variety of written and oral sources, even when they were not always forthcoming. An excellent book to introduce any reader to the subject of modern slavery.
January 5, 2019
I love this book. Its so informed and well written. I appreciate how many different aspects he looks at while also stating inconsistencies and holes in research. Mad appreciation for this book. It has inspired me to develop an interest in possibly researching more on the gendered aspects of forced migration and trafficking, specifically in regards to refugee crisis and climate change in Western and South Asia. If I end up going for a masters in advanced migration studies, I feel like this would probably be a huge focus of mine.
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June 9, 2016"The persistence of bonded labor in South Asia is driven by the ability to generate substantial profits at almost no real risk, through the the exploitation of an immense underclass of systemically impoverished and vulnerable people."
"Perhaps the most important argument in this book is that the lack of a reasonable alternative to the exploitative debt bondage agreement directly negates the voluntary nature of the decision to make it. The decision may still be construed as voluntary from a classical economics standpoint, but I would argue that when an individual is faced with starvation, destitution, and oppressive social system, and no other opportunity for any mode of reasonable subsistence, that individual is hardly making a choice to enter servitude rationally and freely."
"We must never forget that landowners and other producer-creditors possess near-complete control over all local resources, land, access to markets, and oftentimes the law itself. They work assiduously to ensure that the peasant has no reasonable alternative. Is this to be held against the peasant as reason to declare his agreement as being voluntary?"
"Above all, the absence of any reasonable alternative must be construed as an element of coercion or duress that negates voluntary choice in any debt bondage agreement, rendering it, without question, a form of contemporary slavery."
"Both traditions were clear to specify laws relating to this category of slavery, because it was one of the most common ways in which slaves were acquired during ancient times, when famines were a regular occurrence. Unfortunately, salvation from famine or starvation remains a prominent mode of entry into debt bondage even today, which serves as a sharp reminder that no one who chooses subservience in exchange for survival should be deemed to have entered the condition voluntarily."
"Perhaps the most important argument in this book is that the lack of a reasonable alternative to the exploitative debt bondage agreement directly negates the voluntary nature of the decision to make it. The decision may still be construed as voluntary from a classical economics standpoint, but I would argue that when an individual is faced with starvation, destitution, and oppressive social system, and no other opportunity for any mode of reasonable subsistence, that individual is hardly making a choice to enter servitude rationally and freely."
"We must never forget that landowners and other producer-creditors possess near-complete control over all local resources, land, access to markets, and oftentimes the law itself. They work assiduously to ensure that the peasant has no reasonable alternative. Is this to be held against the peasant as reason to declare his agreement as being voluntary?"
"Above all, the absence of any reasonable alternative must be construed as an element of coercion or duress that negates voluntary choice in any debt bondage agreement, rendering it, without question, a form of contemporary slavery."
"Both traditions were clear to specify laws relating to this category of slavery, because it was one of the most common ways in which slaves were acquired during ancient times, when famines were a regular occurrence. Unfortunately, salvation from famine or starvation remains a prominent mode of entry into debt bondage even today, which serves as a sharp reminder that no one who chooses subservience in exchange for survival should be deemed to have entered the condition voluntarily."
June 14, 2023
Like his first book, Bonded Labor is incredibly well researched, documented and written. Kara certainly knows what he's talking about, and goes into such rich detail, presenting the lives of the many people he talked to who were forced into bonded labor. Like his first book, it's hopelessly unsettling. I can't believe this still goes in in this day and age (says the girl of privilege from a prosperous nation). Kara presents the real life situation in such sectors as agriculture, bricks, construction, shrimp, tea, carpets, and domestic servitude. Such a bleak picture. I'm going to try to never eat shrimp again.
Kara does an excellent job of also presenting realistic and extensive solutions to the issues, but I couldn't help but think how hopeless this was. Yes, there are laws, and yes there are ways to break millions of people out of dismal modern day slavery, but the governments of India and South East Asia look the other way, the law enforcement officials are bribed, the rich get richer and the poor hope for death.
So sad.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants their eyes opened to stories that will make then change their buying and consumption habits. It's important people know that modern day slavery is a thing. Only then will something maybe change.
Kara does an excellent job of also presenting realistic and extensive solutions to the issues, but I couldn't help but think how hopeless this was. Yes, there are laws, and yes there are ways to break millions of people out of dismal modern day slavery, but the governments of India and South East Asia look the other way, the law enforcement officials are bribed, the rich get richer and the poor hope for death.
So sad.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants their eyes opened to stories that will make then change their buying and consumption habits. It's important people know that modern day slavery is a thing. Only then will something maybe change.
Read
June 29, 2015“Brings new meaning to owing your soul to the company store. A study of debt bondage and violent enslavement of men, women, and children in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Eighteen million bonded laborers owe their souls to the “man” generating over $17.6 billion in profits every year. Their life is not their own, but the products they make are ones that we purchase everyday: hand-woven carpets, tea, rice, frozen shrimp, more. For individuals, this is a study of the commerce chain and a questioning of who really made this product? What was the true human cost for my convenience? For writers setting anything in South Asia, this is a great resource for the human plotline. It will make you feel angry, sad, and helpless from page 1. Read it to be enlightened.”
My Review of Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia on Killer Nashville
My Other Reviews on Killer Nashville
My Review of Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia on Killer Nashville
My Other Reviews on Killer Nashville
January 19, 2014
This book was meticulously researched, beautifully written, and emotionally moving. Kara does a great job of combining rigorous academic research on the system of bonded labor in South Asia with compelling first hand accounts from bonded laborers. In addition to his excellent documentation of the current state and history of bonded labor in the region, he provides well-reasoned ideas about ways to tackle and change the system. I knew nothing about bonded labor before reading this book and think it's an important topic that everyone participating in the global economic system should know more about. Excellent.
August 20, 2013
Intense. Shocking to learn about the evil bonded slave labor behind so many things we buy and use everyday, from jewelry to rugs.
March 15, 2016
Bonded Labour simply means slavery in the 20th & 21st century, and an amazingly large number of people are currently bonded labourers, with a large concentration of them in South Asia.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews