Modern slavery, also known as contemporary slavery, is an umbrella term for activities when one person obtains or holds another person in compelled service that continues to occur in present day society. An individual is in slavery if he/she is forced to work through mental or physical threat, owned or manipulated by an exploiter (usually through mental or physical abuse as well as the threat to abuse), dehumanized as he/she was treated as a commodity or bought and sold as “property” and physically constrained or have restrictions placed on his/her freedom (“Unseen UK”, n.d.). The most common forms of modern slavery are forced labor, bonded labor, human trafficking, descent-based slavery, child slavery, child soldier as well as forced and early marriage. Modern slavery impacts lives on a daily basis, everywhere across the world, regardless of gender, socioeconomic status or race. However, recent studies have shown that women and girls are disproportionally impacted this issue (International Labour Organisation, 2017). Research have shown that 40-45 million people are affected by modern slavery globally, but 71 percent of the population involved are women and girls. In 2016, it was estimated that 4 million adults and 1 million children were sexually exploited by commercial gain, and 99 percent of it were identified as females. Not only are they considered more likely to be targets of slavery, but they also face great hardships trying to flee from it due to gender-based discrimination. In the latest survey from 2017, women and girls represented over 70% of the 40 million victims of slavery worldwide (International Labour Organisation, 2017). When breaking it down according to different modes of slavery, the female presence is overwhelming in cases of forced marriage, representing 84% of the victims, forced labour, representing 58%, and most importantly in forced sexual exploitation where they represent 99% of the victims (International Labour Organisation, 2017). The impact of modern slavery on women is different from men because of various cultural influence, poverty and being born into a “slave” caste background.
A recent UN report has revealed that an estimation of 40 million people, mostly women and girls are trapped in modern slavery. The majority of them are from Africa, followed by Asia and the Pacific. Studies have shown that modern slavery is more likely to occur at places where the rule of law is weak, governance is poor and corruption is high. Furthermore, women and girls from poor and marginalized families are particularly in jeopardy to disaster risks and climate change. All these factors of modern slavery prevail in Nepal at different levels. Nepal is ranked 149 out of 189 countries on the Human Development Index and 13th highest prevalence rate with estimated 234,600 numbers of enslaved. For rural Nepalese, labor migration is an important strategy for improving livelihoods, buying land, paying debts, accessing education and health care or building a place to live. As a result, Nepal is contemplated as a source, transit and destination country for women in modern slavery. (Manandhar, 2017)
Firstly, the impact on modern slavery is different from men because of cultural influence. Studies have shown that the perception of women in the Nepalese Culture plays a significant role in the predominance of female slavery. Despite Nepal’s warm and colorful culture, it’s history is based on patriarchal influence, leading to great disparities and inequalities between men and women. The sole fact of being female in this country increases the level of risk of falling into servitude. For example, according to an article written by Sophie Cousins, in Nepal’s predominantly agrarian communities, women are banished from their homes every month when they get their periods. Many are relegated to menstruation huts or sheds that families have specifically built for their daughters or daughters-in-law, many other women are also sent to adjoining barns or farms, where they were forced to sleep among stinking cows, goats and buffalos. Women are not only banished from their homes during the duration of their period but also prohibited them from entering the kitchen and touching food, religious icons, cattle, men. They were also not allowed to use community water sources, which prevents them from bathing and washing their clothes (Cousins, 2019). Women are perceived as a financial burden to their own family, due to the embedded idea that only men can provide financial contribution due to their ability to work. This idea is reinforced by the fact that men are often preferred to receive education while girls are more likely to contribute to the financial situation of the family by being married, which tremendously increases their risk of facing abuse, violence and exploitation. Women are usually perceived as second-class citizens, gaining value by their affiliation with man because of the lack of education opportunities. This is also witnessed in Nepalese laws where women are often disadvantaged in opposition to men with regards to inheritance rights, protection from domestic violence, or when a man is free from rape prosecution if he marries the victim and many more. As a result, this patriarchal culture perpetuates and propagates the idea of dominance of males over females and gives way to great difficulties when trying to flee or avoid modern slavery. This gender-based discrimination results in women often suffer from a lower access to education, fewer legitimate employment opportunities, lack of autonomy, making them more helpless to manipulations and thus, to slavery (“Humanium”, 2019).
Secondly, poverty is also one of the reasons why the impact of modern slavery on women is different on men. The occurrence of child labor is a consequence of poverty. For poor families, allowing their children to work is one of the only ways to support their family, to prevent all of them from starving to death. Many parents entrust their children to slavers who promise safety and, at the least, regular meals to the children, yet the children are seldom treated as they were promised (Brauhn, n.d.). Levels of poverty dictate the age at which child workers typically begin to work. According to interviews with more than 400 child workers undertaken by Anti-Slavery International in eight countries during 2004, most of them started working at the age of 12, and even at a much younger age in some locations (Blagbrough, 2008). Child workers are predominantly girls, because the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there are more girls under the age of 16 in domestic service than in any other form of work. Child workers are primarily due to poverty, but also because this practice is seen as normal and indeed, beneficial for girls who will one day become wives and mothers (Black, 2002). Most parents believe that, for example, their daughter working for a wealthier family might bring opportunities for her as well as her family. Other than that, poverty will also give rise to forced marriages. According to Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), which provide much of the current country-level child marriage data, child marriage is most common in the world’s poorest countries. While instances of child marriage are reportedly declining, it was found that 40% of Nepalese girls were married before their 18th birthday and 7% were married before the age of 15, in spite of the fact that the minimum age of marriage under Nepalese law is 20 years of age. According to UNICEF, Nepal has the 17th highest prevalence rate of child marriage in the world and the 17th highest absolute number of child brides, which is a total of 587,000. Although forced and child marriage are prohibited under Nepalese laws and the Nepalese Interim Constitution, forced and child marriage still remains a serious problem in Nepal. Marriage is seen as a way to reduce the economic “burden” of girls for their families. The payment of dowry by the bride’s family to the husband’s family remains extensive despite being illegal. This is particularly excessive in the Southern Terai plains where parents will marry their daughters off at a young age to avoid higher prices. For instance, girls living in the poorer households are more likely to marry off than those living in the richer households (Girls Not Brides, n.d.). Thousands of women and girls were subjected to widespread and systematic sexual violence. This violence frequently manifested itself through forced marriage involving abduction by the rebels and subjection to sexual slavery and forced labour. These women were forced to assume all the obligation of a traditional wife. They were also raped repeatedly, beaten and branded, made to care for their husbands and if they become pregnant, to give birth to children at such a young age. Forced marriage in children or young girls denies their rights to health, education, to live in security and to choose when and whom they marry.
Thirdly, the impact of modern slavery on women is different from men is also because of being born into a “slave” caste background. A significant amount of Nepalese have been found to be recruited for work oversea through fraudulent employment promises, and to have later been subjected to servitude, forced labour and debt bondage. As labour migration has increased overall, so too has female labour migration. Women now account for almost half of emigrants from the Asia-Pacific region (United Nations, 2013). They face specific types of risks and also suffer a disproportionate burden of exploitation (UN Women, 2013). The International Labour Organization estimates women and girls made up 58% of the victims of forced labor worldwide, and even highlights their additionally vulnerability to particular forms of exploitation such as sexual exploitation and more (Abramsky, T. Mak, J. Zimmerman, C. Kiss, L. Sijapati, B, 2018). Women were tricked into migrating for non-existent jobs, causing them forced to work in industries as diverse as manufacturing, mining and other domestic work. Others such as household workers who are promised for paid work but are then forced to work without wages and often without legal immigration status. This prevents them from coming back to their own family and making their children naturally born to a background coming from a “slave” caste. Aside from that, debt bondage is also a cause of being born into a “slave” caste background. Bonded labour is the world’s most widespread form of slavery, when people borrow money they cannot repay and are required to work to pay off the debt, then losing control over the conditions of both their employment and the debt. Despite being the world’s most common form of slavery, it’s also the least unknown. In Nepal, debt bondage is a traditional form of labor exploitation, whereby a person provides labor in repayment of a debt acquired by them or their family, or inherited from their ascendants. Debt bondage is commonly linked to agrarian relations in Nepal, as well as poverty, lack of assets and unequal power relations lie at the root of this practise. For example. Landless individuals are forced by their circumstances to borrow land from land holders, and they enter a cycle of loan repayment through working in exploitative conditions. Most or all of the money they earn goes to pay off their loan, hence the value of their work invariably becomes greater than the original sum of money borrowed. If the previous families couldn’t pay and end the debt, the next generation will continue to pay for their loan, making it an infinity loop for the family until the debt is all paid off. Often the entire family have to work together to pay off the debt taken by one of it’s family members. Sometimes, the debt can be passed down to generations and children can be held in debt bondage the moment they were born because of a loan their families had taken decades ago (Anti-slavery, n.d.).
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