Siddharth Kara...expert on forced labour…estimates that between 18m and 22.5m, people are currently in debt bondage worldwide...85% of them in South Asia…[This phenomenon] where credit is exchanged for pledged labour...persists due to...poverty, caste-based bias, corruption, social apathy...[and] is very much tied to the system of caste...The global economy does look for and demand and feed on these systems, which stimulates their persistence...[In India,] bonded labour was abolished by a comprehensive national law in 1976…The Indian government needs to [take action]...so that this system is no longer perceived as an acceptable and beneficial way of treating workers.