Captive in a chicken coop: The plight of debt bondage workers
For nearly a week last summer, Shanta Bai, a farmworker, says she was held captive in a chicken coop in a remote farm on the outskirts of a village in southern state of Karnataka in India. She was locked in the cramped quarters with other women. They used the corner of the coop for going to the bathroom.
Her husband, Jairam, also a captive, was tied up in a cowshed nearby.
The couple say they were were among a dozen farm workers from the neighboring state of Maharashtra who were being held in what's called "debt bondage" by the contractor who had brought them to work in the farms during the sugarcane harvest season. That phrase means they owed money to the contractor and would not be released until they (or their relatives) repaid the debt.
"We were told that we hadn't done sufficient work to cover the amount he had paid us. He said we owed him two lakh rupees [the equivalent
