Antislavery Usable Past

Kahlid

2012 (Narrative date)

There are an estimated almost 8 million people living in modern slavery in India (GSI 2018). India has a population of more than 1.3 billion people, there are still at least 270 million people living on less than US$1.90 per day. While laws, systems and attitudes regarding key 'fault lines' such as the caste system, gender and feudalism are rapidly changing, social change of this depth and scale necessarily takes time. In this context, it is perhaps unsurprising that existing research suggests that all forms of modern slavery continue to exist in India, including intergenerational bonded labour, forced child labour, commercial sexual exploitation, forced begging, forced recruitment into nonstate armed groups and forced marriage.

Kahlid, a 36 year old garment worker tells of how he is forced to work long hours for little pay in poor living conditions. He talks of the health problems he and other workers face in the garment factory.

Labour officers came here [to the workshop] from time to time but they are only looking for bribes from the workers. Our owners are always changing the name of the factory so that we can’t complain about illegal practices. Most factories are not registered but there is no way to take legal action because owners bribe the local police.

Workers fool themselves that they can earn enough money by working hard but they can only keep up this rate for the first month or two. Without proper food and sleep, it becomes impossible to work so hard.

You won’t believe how many workers have died from the pressure of overworking. It’s impossible to work 14-15 hours a day after overtime and survive. We sleep less than 5 hours a day and eat unhygienic food.

The living conditions also create a lot of health problems. There is no free medical care and I spend Rs 200 on my health every month. I frequently get fevers, headaches and colds.

Narrative provided by Anti-Slavery International from their report ‘Slavery on the High Street: Forced Labour in the manufacture of garments for international brands’, June 2012.

Country

Theme

Forced labour

Type

Narrative

Tags

Garment industry

VOICES: Narratives by Survivors of Modern Slavery

This is the world's largest archive of modern slavery survivor narratives. Across more than a million words spoken or written by survivors of modern slavery, we can see why slavery persists in particular hotspots, analyse patterns in trafficking routes, identify vulnerabilities, understand more about the challenges survivors face in liberation, and discover new antislavery solutions. These narratives offer the chance to systematically design new antislavery strategies based on the experiences, ideas and solutions of enslaved people themselves.

The database is searchable by country, name, theme, and narrative date. Narratives can be viewed in list or map form. A short introduction provides context to each narrative. Narrative provenance appears after the main narrative text.

For ideas on how to use this database, please see our accompanying guide.

Project Lead: Zoe Trodd. Team Members: Andrea Nicholson, Lauren Eglen, Rosemary Pearce, Olivia Wright.

Project Funders: AHRC Antislavery Usable Past grant (2014-19), ESRC/AHRC PaCCS Modern Slavery: Meaning and Measurement grant (2016-19), and AHRC-GCRF Antislavery Knowledge Network grant (2017-2021).

For any queries about the collection please contact: [email protected]. If you wish to cite a particular narrative, please acknowledge the survivor’s name, the provenance of the narrative and cite: Voices Database, the Rights Lab, University of Nottingham.

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