Friday, April 19#blacklivesmatter

Debt Bondage Is Hidden in Plain Sight

The Bougie Aunt | Published 2:00 p.m. E.T. August 19, 2020

10 minute read

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WHAT IS DEBT BONDAGE?

Debt bondage, also called bonded labor, is where a worker enters themselves into slavery through accepting a loan or falling heir to a debt. When a worker accepts a loan, it is usually through false promises by an employer that the worker can reimburse him/her. However, as time passes, and more debt acquires, workers find themselves in slavery – hidden in plain sight. If the worker was not able to reimburse their employer by their death, usually the employer will pass the debt onto a family member. Thus, making debt bondage generational. 

HISTORICAL CONNECTIONS TO DEBT BONDAGE

Involuntary servitude is another synonym for debt bondage, which makes it ironic to see how the term ‘involuntary servitude’ is linked in the Constitution. The Thirteenth Amendment features the keyword because the Thirteenth Amendment’s purpose was to state the abolishment of slavery and involuntary servitude. But the amendment included a catch, involuntary servitude is legal when a party has been convicted of a crime. 

At first glance, the amendment’s wording seems fine. Criminals should pay for their crimes, right? Who cares if they are being forced to work without consent? They are criminals! All those reactions would seem rational based on our societal perception of a criminal, but they are not rational. Yes, any incarcerated person has the likelihood for being incarcerated for a heinous crime, like murder, rape/sexual assault, or assault, etc. But mass incarceration and data collection errors does not examine the whole picture.

Firstly, as I explained in my article, “‘Defund the Police’ Is Not a Radical Statement”, the United States’s police system can trace their origins back to slave patrolling. Furthermore, the police’s racist history has diffused to the prison system, which means penal labor is affecting different races at disproportionate rates. One out of every three African American boys BORN TODAY can anticipate being incarcerated, and African American women are incarcerated at a rate two times higher than white women. Those statistics are even more hideous when combined with the knowledge that penal labor wages are usually less than $1/hour – if they are paid at all. For example, the Texas penal labor system appraised at $88.9 million in 2014, yet the inmates are not paid a cent. 

The disparities between the Thirteenth Amendment’s intentions and its reality upon people demonstrate how it needs to be amended. Involuntary solitude should not be legalized under any context especially since it preys upon marginalized people. Reentry is already hard enough with job restrictions, housing restrictions, and voting restrictions. Therefore, inmates should not be forced to do penal labor as a means to cover the real expenses mass incarceration has on society.

DEBT BONDAGE FROM MIGRATION

Within the complexities of migration, it is effortless for human traffickers to find victims. In debt bondage, these victims tend to be undergoing forced migration for economic reasons (lack of jobs) or they are seeking asylum (from war, poverty, etc.). Migration laws often prevent migrants from obtaining visas and other permits. The receiving countries’ migration laws tend to outdate the countries’ present situations because they formed under the bias of xenophobia as Mohamed Yahya, the Nigerian representative for the United Nations Development Program [UNDP] explains. However, the strict laws perpetuate the issue of debt bondage because migrants find ways to work, but they come at the disadvantage of the migrant. 

For instance, New York has a controversial history with agricultural workers’ rights that persists today. The National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) in 2017 identified that in New York, 83% of workers are Hispanic and 51% were either a part of a visa program, a legal permanent resident, or a U.S. citizen. The workers a part of a VISA program, like the H-2A visa were forced to endure abusive situations because the visa attaches them to only one employer. Furthermore, the wages given to New York farm workers are not even sufficient enough for families to be above New York’s poverty line. 

Moreover, migrants being taken advantage of were shown through a Wisconsin and Georgia farm issue – the H-2A visa was the workers’ downfall in this case too. Upon arrival, the agricultural workers were forced to give their personal documents, like passports to their employer. It was a means to keep the workers from leaving, and the workers were isolated from conversing with strangers. The issue is suspected to be tied to labor trafficking, which is not surprising. 

The H-2A visa provides legal coverage, but along with other visas, there are gaps in them. Debt bondage is an issue from those enacting it, but it also stems from countries’ legislation. Migrants are not adequately protected in high receiving countries because of xenophobic reasons. The argument should not be focused on ‘immigrants taking jobs from citizens’, rather it should be centered on why and how high-risk industries are promoting debt bondage. If we change the conversation, we can eradicate debt bondage – we can no longer allow debt bondage to be hidden in plain sight!

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