Bounded Labour

Also known as debt bondage or debt slavery, it is the most common form of modern slavery. Despite this, it’s the least known.

Debt bondage occurs when a person is forced to work to pay off a debt. They are tricked into working for little or no pay, with no control over their debt.

Most or all of the money they earn goes to pay off their loan. The value of their work invariably becomes greater than the original sum of money borrowed.
Child marriage:Child marriage is a marriage or similar union, formal or informal, between a child and an adult or another child under a certain age, typically age eighteen.[1] The vast majority of child marriages are between a girl and a man, [2][3] and are rooted in gender inequality.[2][4]

Although the age of majority (legal adulthood) and marriageable age are usually designated at age 18, both vary across countries and therefore the marriageable age may be older or younger in a given country
Child marriage violates the rights of children and has widespread and long-term consequences for child brides and child grooms
Descent based slavery: Descent-based slavery describes a situation where people are born into slavery because their ancestors were captured into slavery and their families have ‘belonged’ to the slave-owning families ever since. Slave status is passed down the maternal line.

This form of slavery can still be found across the Sahel belt of Africa, including Mauritania, Niger, Mali, Chad and Sudan. Many other African societies also have a traditional hierarchy where people are known to be the descendants of slaves or slave-owners.

People born into descent-based slavery face a lifetime of exploitation and are treated as property by their so-called ‘masters’. They work without pay, herding animals, working in the fields or in their masters’ homes. They can be inherited, sold or given away as gifts or wedding presents.

Women and girls typically face sexual abuse and rape, and often have to bear their masters’ children. In turn, their children will also be owned by their masters.

Children can also be taken away from their mothers at an early age. They start work at an early age and never attend school.

Escaping slavery is enormously challenging. It is hard for people to adapt to independent life and find decent work. Many thousands of people who have long left their masters (even generations before) still bear the social status of ‘slave’ and as such face ongoing discrimination.

Obtaining identification documents to access the most basic civil rights such as the right to vote and go to school, or to open a bank account, can be a challenge because of lack of birth certificates for people of slave descent.