Terms
Hard work in return for a loan, either of money or resources. Interest repayments may be hugely inflated. Workers may be tricked into taking the loans or may have had no other option. Contracts are rare.

Location
Traditionally India, Pakistan and Nepal. But has expanded to global proportions. Includes children trafficked between West African countries, men forced to work on Brazilian estates, and Eastern European women bonded into Western Europe’s sex industry.

Prohibitions
The UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery (1956) prohibits bonded labour at an international level. Many countries have national legislation.

Terms
Transported far from their homes, people lured by the promise of a better life are forced through violence, threats and deception to work in conditions of slavery.

Location
The trade in human beings affects every continent and most countries.

Prohibitions
The UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (2000). Some countries have national legislation.

Terms
Often more abject than for adult slaves as children are more vulnerable to abuse. Children taken out of familiar surroundings are completely at the mercy of the slavekeepers.

Location
Extensive evidence of child slaves in the Gulf States, South Asia, West and Central Africa. Sexual exploitation of children is found throughout the world.

Prohibitions
Under international law anyone under 18 is a child. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999) provide legal prohibition. Most countries also have legislation.

Terms
When an individual is forced to work against their will, under threat of violence or other punishment, with restrictions on their freedom and a degree of ownership is exerted over them.

Location
Burma, China, Sudan and elsewhere.

Prohibitions
The ILO’s forced labour conventions carry strong prohibitions.

Forced marriage
Women in parts of rural China and the Central Asian Republics are abducted and forced to marry men from neighbouring villages.

Servile marriage
Girls are pledged to priests in Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria to atone for an offence committed by a family member. They are domestic and sexual slaves.
Women from the old slave caste in Niger may still be obliged to become second wives to a man from the owner caste and act as servants for the first wife.

Prohibitions
There are numerous, including in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1999).

Terms
In Sudan, women and children from villages in the South are abducted by pro-Government militia and sold to households in the North. In Mauritania and Niger nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes have slave castes. Even among slaves who have managed to become free and earn money, a tribute must often be paid to their family’s former master who also maintains inheritance rights over any property the free slave may have accrued.

Location
Mauritania, Niger and Sudan.

Prohibitions
Proscribed by the UN under the Slavery, Servitude, Forced Labour and Similar Institutions and Practices Convention (1926), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery (1956).