Bonded Child Labor (outlawed by the 1956 U.N. Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery)

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Bonded labor takes place when a family receives an advance payment (sometimes as little as U.S. $15) to hand a child-boy or girl-over to an employer. In most cases the child cannot work off the debt, nor can the family raise enough money to buy the child back. The workplace is often structured so that "expenses" and/or "interest" are deducted from a child's earnings in such amounts that it is almost impossible for a child to repay the debt. In some cases, the labor is generational-that is, a child's grandfather or great-grandfather was promised to an employer many years earlier, with the understanding that each generation would provide the employer with a new worker-often with no pay at all.

Bonded labor is outlawed by the 1956 U.N. Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery. See also International Legal Standards on Forced and Bonded Labor.
Millions of children work as bonded child laborers in countries around the world; the full extent of the problem has yet to be shown. Millions work in India alone, as documented in the Human Rights Watch 2003 report, Small Change: Bonded Child Labor in India's Silk Industry, and 1996 report, The Small Hands of Slavery: Bonded Child Labor in India.

On the advocacy front, we have met with children's and human rights groups, as well as representatives from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the International Labor Organization (ILO), the World Bank, and other organizations, to try to develop a holistic strategy to prevent children from losing their childhood, education, and opportunities by being entrapped in bonded labor. We have also worked to provide to children's organizations and international advocacy groups objective on-the-spot reporting to support efforts to effect change.
Source:HRW