The impression given by much of the information presented to the Working Group about bonded labour by Anti-Slavery International over the past 25 years is that we are an organisation which monitors violations of international standards on this form of slavery, referred to by international organisations variously as debt slavery, servile status, or a form of forced labour. Consequently we give the impression of being preoccupied primarily with abuses and with cases where States are failing to prevent abuse and to implement their own standards and laws.

In practice, however, much of our own time is spent in pursuit of solutions, looking at what works or has worked in helping victims of debt bondage free themselves and in suppressing the practice of bonded labour. So we would like to share some of our observations with you in order to assist the Working Group in formulating the most useful and appropriate Recommendation this year in its final report, in the knowledge that some of the Working Group's detailed and extensive proposals in the past, such as those presented as "programmes of action", have subsequently been transmitted by the Sub-Commission to the Commission on Human Rights and endorsed by the governments represented there.

Our experience tells us that having clear law and procedures for implementing the law on debt bondage is an important first step, but it is only a first step. Undoubtedly, one of the reasons why debt bondage is so extensive among migrant communities around the world today, and has been noted in the past year in countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, is that such countries made the incorrect assumption that bonded labour was only something which happened on the other side of the world, and did not require specific legislation in their jurisdiction. The law enforcement agencies of such countries tend to know how to measure conditions at work, and how to detect individuals whom they regard as illegal immigrants, but to regard it as far more difficult to identify forced labour or debt bondage.

In the principle countries where debt bondage is reported today, however, there are invariably major problems in implementing laws against debt bondage, generally on account of the strong links at local level between the employers or controllers of bonded labour and the State officials responsible for implementing the law.

Several countries have sought ways around this complicity by establishing a single central police unit, at federal or national level, to carry out inspections or raids, on places where bonded labour is reported, without local officials having a chance to inform employers beforehand. This is evidently expensive, but has proved relatively successful in a country such as Brazil, which has had a Special Group for Mobile Inspection (Grupo Especial de Fiscalização Móvel) to free slave labourers since 1995.

There are other techniques, however, which start at grass roots level rather than being imposed from above, and which deserve attention in any exercise of identifying "best practice" to end bonded labour.

Of course, there is the context of poverty and inequality which create the conditions for debt bondage and which require combating, but on the whole I think this Working Group can focus most usefully on more mundane or pragmatic ways forward.

It has been mentioned repeatedly in this session that combating debt bondage means mobilising or organising the victims, particularly as the exploiters of bonded labour often form a quite cohesive group themselves. There have been many different experiences of doing this and of providing the moral support, practical assistance and training which is necessary, and there are experts with substantial experience attending this session of the Working Group. Ironically, in a year when the international community has been giving particular attention to the issue of freedom of association at the International Labour Conference, individuals and organisations providing this sort of assistance to bonded labourers tend to be regarded by many funders with suspicion, so they have difficulty in getting the financial support needed. It is as if they were regarded as "proto-revolutionaries", and as if changing the social order which allows slavery or servitude to continue were not a legitimate and praise-worthy activity.

Mobilising bonded labourers to oppose collectively their exploitation and to insist on their basic human rights being respected, implies a significant injection of education, both general education to allow bonded labourers to be informed of the alternatives to their predicament, and specific human rights education to allow them to see in which ways they are being abused and what rights they have and can hope to secure.

And education in its broadest sense is evidently needed throughout a society in which debt bondage is occurring, education about the practice and about the reasons why it is wrong. And education is often needed by very educated people who believe so strongly in the law of contract that they assume that debt bondage is an acceptable practice. Such education is sometimes referred to as "awareness raising" and governments sometimes object to it on the grounds that informing people about a problem such as bonded labour is tantamount to admitting that debt bondage or debt slavery exists within their jurisdiction, and invariably they would prefer to pretend that this is not the case.

Mobilisation and education have proved crucial steps in the campaigns against debt bondage. But of course there is also the issue of providing economic alternatives so that poor people who need employment and need credit are not left in complete destitution and obliged to return to bondage as a result of a lack of economic alternatives. Successful rehabilitation of bonded labourers in India, for example, has almost always been accompanied by schemes to give them control over some resources, either through the provision of micro-credit, or by the State giving them land or other productive resources, such as livestock (along with any training necessary to take advantage of these properly). At international level, there have been sporadic attempts to support and learn from such initiatives, in order to find out which economic alternatives succeed, and which ones simply land former bonded labourers back in much the same predicament as before.

At the end of the day, what seems to be needed is a mix of psychological liberation, convincing an individual bonded labourer that he or she can be free, and economic support, allowing those either freed with the support of others, or who make their own decision to be free, to maintain their liberty and personal independence.

Within all these alternatives, there is clearly room for the Working Group to promote studies on "best practice". Some important steps have already been taken, however, even though they sometimes seem to be forgotten.

Responding, it seems, to an invitation contained in this Working Group's recommendation on bonded labour adopted in 1990 (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1990/44, paragraph 122), the International Labour Organization held a seminar in Islamabad (Pakistan), in 1992 on the issue of child bonded labour, and the resulting "Programme of Action against Child Bondage" prepared by the ILO in collaboration with the UN Centre for Human Rights (ISBN 92-2-1080730) mentions most of the areas of activity which are required to end bonded labour, whether it affects children specifically, or adult women or men, or, as so often, entire families. It specifies a range of measures which States can take against bonded labour, including action to develop government policy, legislation, law enforcement, education, training, rehabilitation, community mobilisation and raising public awareness about the unacceptability of bonded labour.

With the huge expansion in activities to deal with child labour, which the world has seen since 1992, it seems that this Programme of Action has been forgotten. It would form an excellent basis for relaunching work against bonded labour, and it would be helpful for the Working Group to ensure that governments are made aware of it, or even that it is revised to be made explicitly applicable to all forms of debt bondage, and not just to under-18s.

This Programme of Action appears to have its origins in a recommendation made by this Working Group in 1990, inviting the ILO "to consider the possibility of envisaging a seminar or workshop on bonded labour", and ten years later it seems timely for the Working Group to return to this idea, and to invite the ILO and others to hold a seminar or workshop to assess more formally what the most effective techniques have been for eradicating debt bondage, in particular to assess what forms of international support are most appropriate for community mobilisation and to enable bonded labourers to make use of their rights to freedom of association, and what techniques have proved most effective in facilitating the rehabilitation and reintegration of victims of debt bondage.