"Mothers and daughters haul handmade bricks at a southeast India kiln while the fathers and sons stoke the fires. Kiln owners acquire workers by loaning poor families money for expenses far beyond their means: medical care or a funeral. Despite years of work to pay these loans, exorbitant interest and dishonest accounting perpetuate the debts, and parents pass the burdens on to their children. Roughly two-thirds of the world's captive laborers—15 to 20 million people—are debt slaves in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal."
—From "21st Century Slaves," September 2003, National Geographic magazine
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