SLAVERY IN INDIA
Crooked moneylenders are exploiting rural poverty and perpetuating a new form of slavery. As farmers struggle to maintain their crops amidst climate change and other forms of pollution, many are left no recourse but to borrow from loan sharks.
Insurmountable interest rates exceeding 50% lead to exploitation and the destruction of lives. Rape, suicide, indentured servitude and murder are propagated by this throwback to medieval feudalism.
A Los Angeles Time article tells the story of a young woman repeatedly raped over months by a moneylender in response to her father’s unpaid debts.
This is only one among many money-lending related horror stories of a sexual nature. Farmers frequently sell their wives and daughters to moneylenders to settle outstanding debts.
This detailed and engrossing article also highlights the estimate of 200,000 farmer suicides since 1997. The main cause of these suicides is loss of land, and thus livelihood, to creditors. The article can be read here.
An often-neglected subject is the link between money-lending and local government. Most of the biggest money-lending families in the region have ties to the public sector. Some even have family in the government. It is easy for these moneylenders to ignore the law and evade persecution.
Despite popular outrage against these injustices, reports indicate money-lending isn’t going away any time soon. The Invest India Savings and Income 2007 survey reported that rural India relies on moneylenders nearly twice as much as banks. This is a sign of the disparity between urban and rural India.
Author: Patrick Koohafkan