In January 2020, the CNN Freedom Project visited Sidlaghatta, a silk center about 40 miles northeast of Bangalore, Karnataka, and met Hadia and Naseeba. This mother and daughter were forced by their “master” to work 11 hours a day, for which they earned only 200 rupees (about $ 2.75) to repay a loan of 100,000 rupees (about $ 1,370) that since then doubled in size.
Naseeba had worked for three years in a silk factory, her mother nine years old, boiling silkworm cocoons and removing the threads with which silk is made. The steam was bad and her hands bled, she said.
“(The master) came and said to my mother, if you don’t return the money, then we will have a rich man and you will have to go to sleep with that man,” said Naseeba.
“I’m afraid of the owner, because he gave us (a) home to live in,” he added. “Where should we go? We can’t go anywhere. We don’t know what he will do to us after (see) this video.”
Hadia and Naseeba hid their faces in front of the cameras and agreed to be identified by CNN only after receiving their release certificates.
In India, bonded workers can approach the authorities by requesting a release certificate. If an investigation concludes that their case is genuine, they receive the certificate, which proves that their debt has been canceled and entitles them to government assistance. The process can be lengthy – sometimes takes years – and can require bonded workers to report to the authorities in the face of social pressure and intimidation.
“It is very difficult to convince slave workers (to go to the authorities), because they feel indebted to the masters or owners who helped them when they were in need,” said Kiran Kamal Prasad, founder of Jeevika, an organization that works to eradicate slave labor.
Authorities often come from the same communities as owners of bonded labor, or are from the same dominant caste as landowners, explained Prasad.
“Often, the authorities are not implementing the Law (of the Slave Labor System),” he added. “It is a tremendous effort on our part to get employees to do what they are supposed to do.”
Life after forced labor
Jeevika has allies in people like Shiva Kumar, a high-ranking local government official in Sidlaghatta.
“I grew up as the son of a bonded laborer,” he told CNN. “The (slave workers) in the village think this is their (destiny). If they file a complaint, we will file a criminal case against the owner.”
For Prasad, freedom is only the first step for the victims. “We want to strengthen the bonded labor agency to (help) guarantee justice for themselves,” he said.
Programs are emerging in villages, where communities of ex-slaves are coming together to put their savings in a collective fund. They can withdraw from the fund if they need to, without having to resort to their former masters – or any other master – for a loan.
Jeevika has helped secure the freedom of nearly 7,000 slave laborers in India over the past six years and, last year, added Hadia and Naseeba to that total. The mother and daughter filed the papers and, in May 2020, received the release certificates.
They were escorted by government officials at the silk factory they worked for years and finally felt free to show CNN, and the world, their faces once again.
