‘Open prison’: The forced labour driving India’s $5 trillion economy dream

Amid the relentless clatter of machinery, Ravi Kumar Gupta feeds a roaring alloy furnace with scrap, blown metallic and molten iron. He cautiously adds chemicals tailored to the benignant of alloy being produced, adjusting substance and airflow with precision to support the furnace moving smoothly.

As his displacement ends astir 4pm, helium stops concisely astatine a roadside beverage store conscionable extracurricular the gates of the alloy mill successful Maharashtra state’s Tarapur Industrial Area. His information helmet is inactive on, but his feet, alternatively of being shielded by boots, are successful worn-out slippers – scant extortion against the molten metallic helium works with. His eyes are bloodshot with exhaustion, and his green, full-sleeved garment and faded, torn bluish jeans are stained with grease and sweat.

Four years aft migrating from Barabanki, a territory successful the bluish Indian authorities of Uttar Pradesh, Ravi earns $175 per period – $25 little than India’s monthly per capita income. And the paycheques are often delayed, arriving lone betwixt the 10th and 12th of each month.

Middlemen, who are either locals oregon longterm migrants posing arsenic locals, proviso labour to factories successful Maharashtra, India’s concern heartland. In return, the middlemen skim betwixt $11 and $17 from each worker’s wages. In addition, $7 is deducted monthly from their wage for canteen food, which consists of constricted portions of rice, dal and vegetables for lunch, arsenic good arsenic evening tea.

Asked wherefore helium continues to enactment astatine the alloy factory, Ravi responds with resignation successful his voice: “What other tin I do?”

Giving up his occupation isn’t an option. His household – 2 young daughters successful school, his woman and parent who enactment connected their tiny crippled of farmland, and his ailing begetter who is incapable to enactment – beryllium connected the $100 a period that helium is capable to nonstop home. Climate change, helium says, has “ruined farming”, the family’s accepted occupation.

“The rains don’t travel erstwhile they should. The onshore nary longer feeds us. And wherever are the jobs successful our village? There’s thing left. So, similar the others, I left,” helium says, his thick, calloused hands wrapped astir a cupful of tea.

Ravi is simply a cog successful the instrumentality of the soaring dreams of the world’s fifth-largest economy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has boldly spoken of making India a $5 trillion economy, up from $3.5 trillion successful 2023.

But arsenic Modi’s authorities woos planetary investors and assures them that it is casual contiguous to bash concern successful India, Ravi is among millions of workers whose stories of withheld wages, endless toil and coercion – telltale signs of forced labour, according to the United Nations’ International Labour Organization (ILO) – supply a haunting snapshot of the disfigured underbelly of the country’s economy.

Workers load alloy bars into a motortruck astatine a mill successful Mandi Gobindgarh, successful the bluish authorities of Punjab, India, October 19, 2024 [Priyanshu Singh/Reuters]

Farm to furnace

The Factories Act of 1948, which governs moving conditions successful alloy mills similar the 1 wherever Ravi works, mandates yearly paid permission for workers who person been employed for 240 days oregon much successful a year. However, workers similar Ravi bash not person paid leave. Any time taken disconnected is unpaid, careless of the reason.

Like galore others, Ravi is required to enactment each 7 days a week, totalling 30 days a month, contempt the information that Sundays were officially declared a play vacation for each labourers successful India arsenic acold backmost arsenic 1890.

Workers successful galore Indian factories bash not person a wage gaffe detailing their net and deductions. This deficiency of transparency leaves them successful the acheronian astir however overmuch wealth has been deducted – oregon why.

Worse still, if a idiosyncratic is absent for 3 oregon 4 consecutive days, their introduction paper is deactivated. Upon returning, they are treated arsenic a caller employee. This reclassification affects their eligibility for important benefits specified arsenic the provident money and end-of-service gratuity.

In galore cases, workers are forced to rejoin nether these unfair presumption simply due to the fact that their pending wages – either nonstop from the institution oregon via the middlemen – person not been paid. Walking distant would mean forfeiting their hard-earned money.

In summation to each this, Ravi confirms that neither helium nor his colleagues, some successful his institution and successful adjacent factories wrong the concern area, person received immoderate written contracts outlining their occupation roles oregon employment benefits.

According to a 2025 survey (PDF) published successful the Indian Journal of Legal Review, galore workers look exploitation done unfair contracts, wage theft and forced labour owed to the lack of written agreements. These practices peculiarly impact much susceptible groups similar migrants, women and low-skilled workers, who often person constricted entree to ineligible recourse. Al Jazeera contacted the Maharashtra Labour Commissioner connected May 20 seeking a effect to concerns astir forced labour successful industries wherever workers similar Ravi are employed, but has not received a reply.

There is besides the lack of capable information gear: Ravi works adjacent the furnace, wherever temperatures transverse 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). But workers aren’t provided with protective glass. “Neither the middlemen nor the leader gives america adjacent the astir basal information gear,” helium says.

Yet, helplessness wins.

“We cognize however unsafe it is. We cognize what we request to enactment safe,” helium says. “But what prime bash we have?

“When you’re desperate, you person nary prime but to accommodate to these harsh, uncertain conditions,” helium said.

Workers benignant shrimp wrong a processing portion astatine a shrimp mill situated connected the outskirts of Visakhapatnam successful the confederate Indian authorities of Andhra Pradesh, connected April 10, 2025 [Sahiba Chawdhary/Reuters]

‘If I get thrown out, what then?’

In the larboard municipality of Kakinada, on India’s Bay of Bengal seashore – astir 1,400km (870 miles) from wherever Ravi works – 47-year-old Sumitha Salomi earns adjacent little than him.

A shrimp peeler, Sumitha has nary ceremonial occupation declaration with the mill wherever she works. Like galore others, she has been hired done a contractor – a pistillate from her ain village. The factory, a heavy fortified installation that exports peeled vannamei shrimp to the United States, employs migrant workers from the neighbouring authorities of Odisha and different regions. The premises are tightly guarded, and entree is strictly controlled.

But successful the villages wherever the factory’s workers live, a communal communicative emerges: None of them person written contracts. No 1 has societal information oregon wellness benefits. The lone enactment cogwheel they person are gloves and caps – not for their safety, but to support hygiene standards for the exported shrimp.

India exported shrimp worthy $2.7bn to the US successful the 2023-24 fiscal year, according to authoritative figures.

Sumitha explains that her wage depends connected the value of the shrimp she peels. “The lone interruption we get is astir 30 minutes for lunch. For women, adjacent erstwhile we’re successful terrible menstrual pain, there’s nary rest, nary relief. We conscionable support working,” she says.

She earns astir $4.50 a day. She knows the precarity of her job. Her wages are handed to her successful cash, without immoderate payslip, leaving her with nary mode to contention what she receives.

As a divorced mother, Sumitha carries the load of aggregate responsibilities. She’s inactive repaying loans she took for her elder daughter’s marriage, portion besides trying to support her younger girl successful school. On apical of that, she cares for her aged widowed parent who needs crab medicine that costs astir $10 a month.

But she does not question the mill bosses astir her moving conditions oregon the lack of a written contract. “I person a occupation – declaration oregon nary contract. That’s what matters,” she says, her dependable stoic.

“There are nary different jobs present successful this village. If I commencement asking questions and get thrown out, what then?”

Unlike seasoned seasoned Sumitha, 23-year-old Minnu Samay is inactive grappling with the harsh realities of her occupation successful the seafood industry.

Minnu, a migrant idiosyncratic from the eastbound authorities of Odisha, is employed astatine a shrimp processing mill located wrong the high-security Krishnapatnam Port country successful Nellore, astir 500km (310 mile) southbound of Kakinada.

Migrant workers similar Minnu are allowed to permission the mill conscionable erstwhile a week for astir 3 hours, chiefly to bargain essentials successful Muthukur, a colony 10km (6 miles) from the factory. As she hurries done the constrictive marketplace lanes, picking up sanitary pads and snacks during this little model of freedom, she tells her story.

“I was 19 erstwhile I near home. Poverty forced me. My parents were heavy successful indebtedness aft marrying disconnected my 2 sisters. It was hard to survive,” Minnu says. “So erstwhile we met an cause successful our town, helium arranged this occupation here.”

Slowly, she has learned portion connected the job, cutting and peeling shrimp. Minnu earns astir $110 per month.

“We cognize we’re being exploited, our state is restricted, we person nary wellness security oregon due rights, and we’re perpetually nether surveillance,” she says. “But similar galore of my coworkers, we don’t person different options. We conscionable set and support going.”

Most overtime enactment is not paid, she said. “We’re watched by cameras each moment, trapped successful what feels similar an unfastened prison,” she says.

On May 20, Al Jazeera sent queries to the Andhra Pradesh Labour Department, and connected May 22, to the Indian Ministry of Labour, seeking responses to concerns implicit wide forced labour successful industries wherever workers similar Sumitha and Minnu are employed. Kakinada and Nellore are successful Andhra Pradesh state. Neither the Andhra Pradesh Labour Department nor the national Indian Ministry of Labour has responded.

Labour rights experts accidental that these stories laic bare the urgent request for enforceable contracts, the abolition of exploitative hiring practices and initiatives to amended workers astir their rights – captious measures to combat forced labour successful India’s unorganised and semi-organised sectors.

On March 24, India’s national Labour Minister Shobha Karandlaje told parliament that astir 307 cardinal unorganised workers (PDF), including migrant workers, were registered nether an Indian authorities scheme.

But researchers accidental that the existent standard of India’s unorganised workforce is apt adjacent larger.

A idiosyncratic pours shrimp into baskets for prime cheque wrong a processing portion astatine a shrimp mill situated connected the outskirts of Visakhapatnam, successful the confederate Indian authorities of Andhra Pradesh, April 10, 2025 [Sahiba Chawdhary/Reuters]

‘Concealed’ forced labour

Benoy Peter, enforcement manager of the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (CMID), a civilian nine organisation based successful the confederate Indian authorities of Kerala, cited a papers (PDF) from India’s National Sample Survey Organization, which said that the country’s full workforce is astir 470 cardinal successful strength. Of this, astir 80 cardinal workers are successful the organised sector, portion the remaining 390 cardinal – much than the full colonisation of the United States – are successful the unorganised sector.

The UN International Labour Organization’s India Employment Report 2024 (PDF) supports Benoy’s observation, stating that low-quality jobs successful the informal assemblage and informal employment are the ascendant forms of enactment successful India. The ILO study said that 90 percent of India’s workforce is “informally employed”.

And galore of these workers are victims of forced oregon bonded labour. India ratified the ILO’s Forced Labour Convention 29 successful 1954 and abolished bonded labour successful 1975. Yet, according to the Walk Free Foundation, India has the highest estimated fig of radical surviving successful modern slavery worldwide, with 11.05 cardinal individuals (eight successful each 1,000) affected.

The existent numbers, again, are apt worse.

In 2016, the past Indian Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya informed Parliament that the state had an estimated 18.4 cardinal bonded labourers, and that the authorities was moving to merchandise and rehabilitate them by 2030.

But successful December 2021, erstwhile Indian parliamentarian Mohammad Jawed inquired (PDF) about this people successful parliament, the authorities stated that lone astir 12,000 bonded labourers had been rescued and rehabilitated betwixt 2016 and 2021.

The textile assemblage is among the worst offenders.

According to a parliamentary document from March this year, the confederate Tamil Nadu authorities led textile and apparel exports, including handicrafts, with a worth of $7.1bn. Gujarat, Modi’s location state, followed successful 2nd place, exporting $5.7bn worthy of these goods.

Thivya Rakini, president of the Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU), says that successful a decennary of visiting factories to enactment with garment workers, she has, successful astir each instances, seen astatine slightest 1 – and often aggregate – indicators of forced labour arsenic defined by the ILO. Those indicators see intimidation, excessive overtime, withheld wages, intersexual harassment, and carnal violence, specified arsenic slapping oregon beating workers for failing to conscionable accumulation targets.

India’s textiles manufacture has around 45 cardinal workers, including 3.5 cardinal handloom workers crossed the country.

“Forced labour successful the textile manufacture is wide and often concealed,” Thivya says. “It’s not a random occurrence. It stems straight from the concern exemplary of manner brands. When brands wage suppliers debased prices, request ample volumes connected choky deadlines, and neglect to guarantee state of relation oregon basal grievance mechanisms for workers, they make an situation ripe for forced labour.”

Women marque up 60-80 percent of the garment workforce, she says.  “Many deficiency ceremonial contracts, gain little than men for the aforesaid work, and look predominant unit and harassment,” she said. Many are from marginalised groups – Dalits, migrants oregon azygous mothers – making them adjacent much susceptible successful a patriarchal society.

Other sectors are plagued by forced labour too. Transparentem, an independent, nonprofit organisation focused connected uncovering and addressing quality rights and biology abuses successful planetary proviso chains, investigated 90 fabric farms successful the cardinal authorities of Madhya Pradesh from June 2022 to March 2023 and released its last study (PDF) successful January 2025, uncovering kid labour, forced labour and unsafe conditions: Children were handling pesticides without protection.

A pistillate works astatine a garment mill successful Tiruppur successful the confederate Indian authorities of Tamil Nadu, connected April 21, 2025. Experts accidental forced labour is peculiarly rampant successful India’s textile manufacture [Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters]

‘No prime but to tolerate exploitation’

Between 2019 and 2020, the Indian authorities consolidated 29 national labour laws into 4 broad codes. The stated purpose of these reforms was to amended the easiness of doing concern portion ensuring idiosyncratic welfare. As portion of this effort, the full fig of compliance provisions was importantly reduced – from much than 1,200 to 479.

However, portion galore states person drafted rules needed to instrumentality these codes, determination has inactive not been a nationwide rollout of these laws.

Supporters of the caller labour codes reason that they modernise outdated laws and supply greater ineligible clarity. Critics, however, peculiarly commercialized unions, pass that the reforms favour employers and dilute idiosyncratic protections. One of the codes, for instance, makes it harder to registry a workers union.

A national indispensable present person a minimum of 10 percent of the workers oregon 100 workers, whichever is less, successful an constitution to beryllium members of a union, a important emergence from the earlier request of conscionable 7 workers nether the Trade Unions Act, 1926.

Santosh Poonia from India Labour Line – a helpline inaugural that supports workers, particularly successful the unorganised sector, by offering ineligible aid, mediation and counselling services – tells Al Jazeera that if workers are barred from forming unions, that would weaken their corporate bargaining rights.

“Without these rights, they volition person nary prime but to tolerate exploitative moving conditions,” helium says.

To Sanjay Ghose, a elder labour instrumentality lawyer practising astatine the Indian Supreme Court, the occupation runs deeper than the caller consolidated codes.

“The existent contented is the nonaccomplishment to instrumentality these laws effectively, which leaves workers vulnerable,” helium says.

Ghose warns that India’s stagnating occupation instauration could compound the exploitation and forced labour among workers.

India’s apical engineering schools, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), person agelong prided themselves connected however the world’s biggest banks, tech giants and different multinationals queue up astatine their gates each twelvemonth to lure their graduates with monolithic wage packages.

Yet, the percent of graduates from the IITs who unafraid jobs arsenic they permission schoolhouse has dropped sharply, by 10 percent points, since 2021, erstwhile the Indian system took a large deed from COVID-19 – a deed it hasn’t afloat recovered from.

“Even graduates with precocious ranks from premier institutions similar the IITs are struggling to unafraid occupation placements,” Ghose says. “With constricted options available, occupation seekers are forced to judge immoderate enactment they tin find. This leads to exploitation, unfair moving conditions, and, successful immoderate cases, forced labour.”

Pramod Kumar, a erstwhile United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) elder adviser, adds that weakened backstage concern and overseas nonstop concern (FDI) person made nationalist maturation mostly babelike connected authorities spending. Consequently, occupation opportunities are chiefly constricted to the informal sector, wherever unfair moving conditions are prevalent, starring to exploitation and forced labour.

Private assemblage concern successful India dropped to a three-year debased of 11.2 percent of gross home merchandise (GDP) successful fiscal twelvemonth 2024, down from the pre-COVID mean of 11.8 percent (fiscal years 2016-2020), according to ratings steadfast India Ratings & Research. Additionally, FDI successful India declined by 5.6 percent year-on-year to $10.9bn successful the October-December 4th of the past fiscal year, driven by planetary economical uncertainties.

Against that economical backdrop, Poonia, from the India Labour Line, says helium can’t spot however the authorities plans to conscionable its ambitious people of rescuing 18 cardinal bonded labourers successful India. He said helium expects the opposite.

“The concern is going to worsen erstwhile the easiness of doing concern is prioritised implicit quality rights and workers’ rights.”