Debt Bondage and Trafficking in Women
last updated September 1, 2005

The definition of trafficking in persons contained in the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children does not explicitly refer to debt bondage as a form of exploitation.  The Protocol, however, prohibits "forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery [and] servitude," terms which are defined in earlier UN treaties.  For example, Article 1 of the UN Slavery Convention of 1927, defines "slavery" as "the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised." The Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery defines "debt bondage" as:

the status or condition arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or of those of a person under his control as security for a debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined. 

This definition of debt bondage has also been adopted into national legislation. For example, substantively the same language appears in the U.S. anti-trafficking law, the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000.  Article 165 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Moldova, revised in 2002, also defines the offense of trafficking to include the "threat of use or use of physical or psychological violence non-dangerous for a person's life and health, including through abduction, confiscation of documents and servitude for the repayment of a debt whose limits are not reasonably defined . . ."

In addition, the 2003 U.S. Department of State Model Law to Combat Trafficking in Persons draws an explicit connection between debt bondage and trafficking. The law adopts language almost identical to the U.N. Supplementary Convention in defining debt bondage.

In the context of trafficking in women, debt bondage usually occurs when traffickers assist women in traveling, making illegal border crossings, and finding employment, often in the form of commercial sex work, and then require the women to "work off" the debt they owe for the services provided.  In situations of debt bondage, women become virtual prisoners, as they are unable to ever earn back the amount purportedly owed to the traffickers.  Trafficked women are prevented from escaping their situation through debt bondage as well as retention of travel documents, violence and threats of violence against themselves or their families.  A November 2002 report by Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based NGO, Hopes Betrayed: Trafficking of Women and Girls to Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina for Forced Prostitution, includes the following information:

Although employers generally promised the trafficked women that they could keep 50 percent of their earnings after they paid off their debt, this rarely occurred in practice.  In some cases, owners arbitrarily extended a woman's period of debt bondage and simply refused to split her earnings.  According to A.A., a young Ukrainian woman trafficked into Bosnia and Herzegovina, "We came here, and the owner told us that we had been sold and that we had to work off our debt....We could not leave.  He said that we had to work three more months even after we had worked off our debt... until the 8th of March.  But after that we still had to work." . . .

Some bar owners allowed women to keep their tips.  But in many cases, the owners simply levied fines that sucked even those small earnings away from the women.  Through fines, forced purchases of lingerie and food, or outright theft, the women found that they effectively earned no money.  One woman, D.D., trafficked to Bosnia and Herzegovina from Ukraine in 1998, told Human Rights Watch, "I did not earn anything. I earned money at the bar Scharmant, but [the owner] fined me for any small infraction and took away from me 300 Deutschmarks [€154/U.S.$138] that I had saved."

 

Representatives of organizations that provide services to trafficked persons, such as La Strada, have recognized the need to understand the dynamics of debt bondage in a trafficking situation.  Frequently, local law enforcement officials encounter victims of trafficking through raids of brothels or other crime prevention activities.  Although it might not be immediately apparent that trafficking has occurred, it is important for officials to be aware of the fact that women encountered during such law enforcement activities may be in situations of debt bondage and that debt bondage is an indicator of trafficking.