Modern day Slavery is a huge problem in India. Nearly 16 million people are enslaved in India today. This is roughly the same as the population of Chile. In 2014-2015 three thousand people were freed from slavery. It was shocking to me that with the 1600 groups working against slavery they were only able to free 3000 people. There are many ways to become enslaved, but one that is more abundant in India than anywhere else is becoming enslaved from debt accumulated by paying for a wedding. An Indian wedding is a huge ceremony that can last for days. It is common for families to borrow money from very corrupt lenders. Once they can not pay the debt back the entire family becomes enslaved and it is very hard to escape. There are now weddings organized by previous victims of slavery where a bunch of couple get married at once. One wedding had over one thousand people attend and five couples got married costing each family only around fifteen dollars. One Indian police officer claims that when she tries to contact the human trafficking department she is transferred to a department dealing with traffic problems.
Sources
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071016/asp/opinion/story_8436850.asp
http://www.freetheslaves.net/where-we-work/india/
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