50,000 Bonded Laborers a Year in One Malaysian City

Sabah may look like a smallish port city in the Northern part of Malaysia, but it's actually an international hub for bonded labor. Over 50,000 bonded laborers end up passing through Sabah each year, a full third of all the migrant workers who travel there. And these bonded laborers are virtually slaves to their debt.

Here's how debt bondage works in Malaysia (and many other places in the world). A worker, let's call him Al, gets a job offer from a recruiter. Let's say Al lives in Bangladesh and the job offer is in Malaysia. The recruiter tells Al he can make $500 a month working construction in Malaysia, and all Al has to do is come up with a $1000 "recruitment fee" and the cost of his plane ticket to Malaysia. Al doesn't have that kind of money, so the recruiter offers to lend it to him. He tells Al that once he's paid back the loan and interest, he'll get to keep his $500 a month paycheck.

Now once Al gets to Malaysia, any number of things can happen. His employer can take his passport, drive him out to a remote compound, and force him to work without pay, clearly enslaving him. Or, as is often the case, his employer can put him in a situation called "debt bondage", where Al is forced to work for little or no pay until his debt is paid off. Sometimes, the debt amounts are real, and workers are free to keep working or leave after paying them off. Often, they are inflated or just plain fabricated, so that workers either pay back much more than is owned or never really pay off the debt. And often, the wages promised don't ever come, making what sounded like a good financial investment back home a lot less attractive, and sometimes exploitative.

A recent study conducted in Sabah, Malaysia found that a third of migrant workers passing though the city identified as bonded laborers. Their chief complaints were that they were made false promises with a job offer, and that recruiters didn't explain how they would have to repay their debt before receiving their due wages. The workers were from a variety of industries, from agriculture to domestic service. But the strong commonality between them was the deceit from labor recruiters and the coercive nature of their debt. To address this massive influx of bonded labor, NGOs and government agencies are creating a number of programs and workshops aimed at reducing unscrupulous recruiting and providing resources to migrant workers.

Bonded labor is far from limited to Malaysia; it happens in countries all over the world. And in many cases, victims feel entrapped by their debt, just as they would by walls, chains, or threats of violence. In some countries, debt bondage is considered a form of human trafficking. But other countries haven't fully addressed debt bondage and bonded labor in their laws. India, famously, has a huge number of bonded laborers, creating a problem which has proved difficult to both quantify and address.

Whether in Malaysia, India, or even in the U.S., bonded labor is a very real human rights abuse. And it's one which can only be addressed through comprehensive laws that are enforced, so that people like Al have all the information they need when choosing to take a job.

Photo credit: Joost J. Bakker