Unpaid labour

Most of India's bonded labourers are at the bottom of the caste hierarchy, which makes them practically untouchable to those who might want to assist them in literacy or liberation. Some are born into unpaid servitude, as their parents were in stone quarries, rice paddies and brick kilns. Others are lured into servitude by employers or by debts that may never be repaid. A 1992 report estimates at least 5 million adults and 10 million children working without pay in India, whose population nears 844 million. Since 1980, one humanitarian organization has freed more than 40,000 bonded labourers from around India. Labourers caught escaping may be shot or beaten to death.