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Pawnage
or Pawn Slavery
Bonded
child working in brick kiln factory
(Photo taken by Mathias Heng during Mission funded by
the Society. Copyright Mathias Heng)
Pawnage
or pawn slavery is a form of servitude akin to bonded
labor under which the debtor provides another human
being as security or collateral for the debt.
Until the debt (including interest on it) is paid off,
the creditor has the use of the labor of the pawn.
It is now mostly found in India and Pakistan.
Pawns are usually children. Their parents deliver
them up to the creditor as security for the debt.
Pawnage was very widespread in Africa until well into
the last century.
Pawnage was first referred to in the 1843 Slave Trade
Act. Section
2 of the Slave Trade Act 1843 enacted by the
British Parliament declared "persons holden in
servitude as pledges for debt", ie, bonded
laborers, to "be slaves or persons intended to be
dealt with as slaves" for the
purpose of the Slave Trade Act 1824 and the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
Bonded
child working in brick kiln factory
(Photo taken by Mathias Heng during Mission funded
by the Society. Copyright Mathias Heng).
During
the 1950s the Committee of Experts observed that pawnage
was then widespread in Africa and recommended that it be
dealt with in a United Nations convention. It is
not dealt with in
Article 1(a) of the Supplementary Convention on the
Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions
and Practices Similar to Slavery 1956, parties to the
Convention are required to adopt measures to bring about
the complete abolition of debt bondage, which is defined
to include not only what the Society describes as bonded
labor, but also pawnage or pawn slavery, ie, "the status or
condition arising from a pledge by a debtor of
[the] personal services [...] 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".
The material in this report is based on a Mission to
South Asia by the Society's Secretary-General.
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Links
to other pages dealing with this issue:
Bonded
labor in the carpet weaving industry
Rugmark
rugs and carpets
Goods
made by child labor
Different
forms of child labor
Child
labor generally
Society's
overseas programs in Africa and Asia
Internet
links:
Nepal
police free bonded child laborers in the carpet industry
The Society is not responsible for the
content of external internet links
of
external internet sites. |
