Legal Definition
Debt bondage is classically defined as a situation when a person provides a loan to another who uses his or her labor or services to repay the debt. When the value of the work, as reasonably assessed, is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt, the situation becomes one of debt bondage. See United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery. This was very common in Ancient Greece. In ancient Athens, Solon forbade taking out loans using oneself as a security and ended any current such debts, ending debt bondage.
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