"We know the pain’: freed India coffee workers lead way from bonded labour", October 5 2023

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...Last year, figures released by the International Labour Organization showed how widespread bonded labour is in India, despite being abolished in 1976. With little access to formal banking systems, it is common for poorer people to borrow from their employers when they need money quickly, which can leave them at the mercy of unscrupulous bosses.

Some coffee estates have become a “vicious den of debt bondage”, says YK Ganesh, secretary of AHSS, whose 600 members are former bonded labourers ...

More than 200,000 people work on Kodagu’s plantations, which produce about 110,730 metric tonnes of coffee a year, about 35% of India’s total annual production.

AHSS believes more than 8,000 families in Kodagu are trapped in debt bondage, and Ganesh has criticised police and district administrators for not doing enough to protect workers ...

Under Indian law, those held in bonded labour are entitled to compensation – money and a place to live. But, says Ganesh, this “happens once in a blue moon. Only about 100 families so far have received [financial] help totalling 300,000 rupees.”

Gouri, 60, works with her daughter on a coffee estate in the district to pay back the 30,000 rupees she borrowed in 2014. She says her boss keeps increasing the interest on the loan.

“When I proposed to pay back the debt, the employer arbitrarily increased the amount to 130,000 rupees and it was impossible for us to pay that,” says Gouri, who earns 150 rupees a day. She is hoping that AHSS can secure her release.

Gange, 36, is also working with the group. She’s been paying back a loan of 10,000 rupees she took out eight years ago to pay for medication. She earns 150 rupees a day. “After I recovered, I continued working for the owner to pay back the debt.”

Kaveri Amma, Cauvery coffee plantation’s owner, did not want to comment on the individual case but said: “We lost workers after AHSS alleged bad working conditions of coffee workers. The low wages were increased in the following years.”

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