Peonage, also called debt peonage, is any form of wage labor, financial exploitation or coercive economic practice or policy in which a laborer, called a peon, has little control over their own employment or economic conditions. Peonage existed in both the colonial and post-colonial periods of Latin America, and also in the United States after the end of slavery, when Black Codes were passed to keep African American freedmen bound to labor through other means.
Facts
Institution Type Membership Basis Connections
Associated With
Debt peonage and serfdom are both institutions of bound agricultural labor tying a worker to a landowner, debt peonage through a nominally repayable financial obligation and serfdom through hereditary status.
Debt peonage has been documented, including by international bodies, as a practice closely bordering slavery, in which debt is used to compel labor under conditions the debtor cannot practically escape.
In the Other Atlases
Originated In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.
Source Debt Peonage (Wikipedia)Article bodyQuote, Article body
The practice is still prevalent, especially in South Asia and parts of Western and Southern Africa, despite the fact that most countries in these regions are parties to the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery.
Sources
1. Debt bondage (Wikipedia)
Lead, institution-type-category labour-system
Debt bondage, also known as debt slavery, bonded labour, or peonage, is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligations.
Lead, membership-basis compulsory
Debt bondage, also known as debt slavery, bonded labour, or peonage, is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligations.
View the SourcePeonage (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead sectionQuote, Lead section
Peonage is any form of wage labor, financial exploitation, coercive economic practice, or policy in which the victim or a laborer (peon) has little control over employment or economic conditions.
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