Human Rights Watch says that:

In Saudi Arabia foreign workers—who comprise one-third of the kingdom’s population—face torture, forced confessions and unfair trials when they are accused of crimes

The 135 page report published earlier this month is a damning indictement of the Saudi system – and the physical, mental and sexual exploitation faced by workers.

In rural Maharashtra – social activists tell me of the dangers that people face of slipping back into bonded labour. Even today, almost 30 years after it got abolished, thedanger still lurks. And the poorest of the poor become bonded labour for generations, for failing to repay a Rs.1000 loan (approx US$ 20).

Last year I remember getting outraged after reading about girls who were sold into servitude to work on hybrid cottonseed farms in rural Andhra Pradesh. I don’t know whether you remember an article a few years ago in the National Geographic on girls from the former Yugoslavia sold into sexual slavery. There isn’t a week that goes by where we don’t read about underage girls who have been rescued from brothels in Mumbai. They had been sold into prostitution.

In all the cases, slavery exists with the tacit approval of corrupt officials. The reasons it exists today is the same reason it existed in a more public manner 150 years ago. If the cost of labour is zero – if you don’t have to pay wages, pay a pittance for food, and even less on shelter – , then the profits to be made are even higher. Paying a slice of these profits to corrupt politicians and bureaucrats ensures their silence.
On paper, anywhere in the world, slavery is banned. In practise the story is different. I really don’t know what the solution to this could be …. the death penalty for offenders seems to let them off very easily – and knowing the way the system functions it is possible that some minor hoodlum varieties would climb the gallows and the fat cats would get away.
Any suggestions?