Council: social humanitarian cultural committee

Issue: eliminating debt bondage

country : Norway
delegate : Jahnavi Chellamsetty

Debt bondage is way in which employers give high-interest loans to workers who themselves
and their families have to work to repay the amount; which is illegal in most countries. It is
estimated about 8.1 million people are bonded to labour illegally and it is said to be a form of
modern day slavery. People are usually tricked into bonded labour after being lended money
by someone and then are asked to work for this person to make up for their debts. However,
their pay is so little that it is almost impossible for them to get out of their debt. In addition to
that,sometimes their debts have also very high interest rates and interest on the interest,
making it after a certain amount of time impossible for the bonded laborers to pay back their
ever rising debt. The debt and therefore also the state of being enslaved is often passed on
to the children of the labourers.Norway has been seen as notable country in fighting this
form of modern slavery.

Norway has a law protecting its citizens from becoming debt bondagers as it uses the Debt
Settlement Act gives individuals with serious debt problems the opportunity to gain control of
their economy. A debt settlement scheme is an agreement to pay as much as possible of the
debt during a limited period, and then have the remaining debt cancelled. However it can be
only used once in a person's lifetime and there are several requirements in order to be
eligible for this act.

Although there have been cases where norway has seen overseas labours being victimized
due to the language barrier. One example of this is when a norwegian man brought
vietnamese farmers to work at low wages and in the end the farmers were dependent on the
norwegian man due to the high debts they faced. Although this is shows that debt bondage
is prevalent norwegian government has persecuted the man for gross human trafficking and
he faced imprisonment.

Although the government has made some changes to its policies to improve this crisis, as it
is a new and upcoming problem the government believes there are many resolutions that
can take place. Furthermore the delegation is open to wide variety of resolutions. We
believe that by ​Having a clear policy not to use forced labour;Ensure that all company 
officials have a full understanding of what forced labour is would allow to decrease this 
issue. 
In addition Make sure employment contracts are available to all employees stating the 
terms and conditions of their service, what they are required to do, the freedom of rights 
and any penalties that may be associated with a departure of the employees. 
https://www.norway.no/en/missions/UN/values-priorities/dev-policy-hum-efforts/ 

https://www.unglobalcompact.org/what-is-gc/mission/principles/principle-4 

http://norwaytoday.info/news/forced-labour-human-trafficking/ 

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/no.html