NEW DELHI: As India marks half a century since the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, was enacted, a new report by the National Campaign Committee for Eradication of Bonded Labour (NCCEBL) finds that the law’s promise of freedom remains largely unfulfilled.
The report, launched November 28, 2025, lays bare how systemic inertia, bureaucratic apathy, and collusion enable modern-day slavery to persist — especially among migrant workers and in sectors such as brick kilns, manufacturing, and agriculture.
At the launch, convener Nirmal Gorana said: “People are working all their life in free India but as slaves. The law exists, the BLSAA 1976, but this report brings out the absolute failure of the government in implementing this law and protecting the most basic rights of these workers.”
Though the BLSAA abolished bonded labour nearly 50 years ago, the NCCEBL report underscored how critical enforcement mechanisms have never been implemented in good faith. Summary trials seldom take place, and mandated vigilance committees often abdicate responsibility — sometimes forcing victims to sign documents they cannot read.
The result: rescued labourers routinely remain trapped in debt and deprivation.
According to the report, in a vast majority of cases, no First Information Report (FIR) is filed. In many instances, the state sides with employers and contractors rather than workers, enabling exploitation to persist with impunity.
Even when workers are freed, the safety net is severely inadequate. The mandated rehabilitation package, designed to help them rebuild their lives, is often delayed or nonexistent. For many freed workers, access to guaranteed employment schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) remains elusive — pushing them back into debt bondage.
In the bleakest measure of failure, national statistics show that between 1978 and early 2025, just around 2.97 lakh people have been officially rescued, a tiny fraction of the millions believed still entrapped.
More recently, only 468 workers were rehabilitated in the entire fiscal year 2023–24, despite an ambitious national target set in 2016 to liberate and rehabilitate millions by 2030.
Experts argue that the persistence of bonded labour reflects structural inequalities, poverty, caste, lack of formal work, and deep-rooted discrimination, which the law alone cannot dismantle.
“What we are seeing is not residual bondage from the past,” the report argues. “This is active, ongoing exploitation, the kind of forced labour that underpins entire industries across India.”
The release echoed voices like that of senior advocates and labour rights activists, warning that without political will and institutional reform, the nation will continue to live with an open secret: slavery in plain sight.
Experts say, although the report focuses on widespread migrant labour across India, its implications resonate deeply everywhere, including regions like Kashmir, where economic uncertainty, migration, and informal labour are increasingly becoming common.
The stark mismatch between law and lived reality documented by NCCEBL should serve as a wake-up call for civil society and policymakers alike.
Observers say rescue must be followed by genuine rehabilitation, access to employment, debt relief, and dignity.
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