A/HRC/33/46 involve multinational corporations that work on the extraction of precious metals or minerals. In the Kivu provinces in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, debt bondage has been reported as one of the most common forms of contemporary slavery in mines. Workers contract debts to purchase food, supplies and working tools when they start working and continue to accrue debt in order to meet their basic needs. Most of the workers in debt bondage in North Kivu province come from other eastern provinces.5 13. It has also been reported that indigenous peoples in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are subjected to practices similar to slavery, including debt bondage, by the Bantu majority. Indigenous peoples are often trapped in debt bondage by Bantu “masters” who often sell them goods such as clothes, food and medicine at inflated prices and add exorbitant rates of interest if the goods are not paid for on time and who demand their work in return. It is also a common practice for the Bantu to create new debts in order to sustain the exploitation of bonded labourers. For example, it has been reported that they provide food to indigenous children and then add inflated costs to the debts of parents.6 14. In Malawi, situations of debt bondage are reported to be prevalent within the tobacco industry.7 This sector is a major source of employment in Malawi and generates a significant amount of income for the country. Tobacco is traditionally grown by farmers who use waged workers, temporary workers and also tenants (workers to whom farmers provide land, food and housing and to whom they loan agricultural tools, the costs of which are deducted from future profits). The relationship between tenants and estate or farm owners has been reported to be largely exploitative, leading to a situation of debt bondage. The costs charged to tenants by the estate or farm owners exceed the amount received from tobacco sales due to manipulation of the debts. This leads to tenants, who are reportedly predominantly male, and their families, becoming trapped in situations of debt bondage. In 2013, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food estimated that 300,000 tobacco tenant families were living in extremely precarious situations in Malawi (see A/HRC/25/57/Add.1, para. 47). Since 1995, the Government has made several attempts to enact a specific law on tenancy labour but has yet not successfully developed such legislation. A tenancy labour bill was first drafted in 1995, and the latest version, from 2012, is still under debate. 8 Asia 15. The practice of debt bondage in South Asia is reported to be widespread, particularly in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. 9 The existence of debt bondage has also been 5 6 7 8 9 6 of the New ILO Protocol on Forced Labour, Lusaka, 17 and 18 November 2015, p. 38. Available from www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---africa/---roaddis_ababa/documents/publication/wcms_425974.pdf. Free the Slaves, “The Congo report: slavery in conflict minerals”, June 2011, pp. 11 and 14-16. Available from www.freetheslaves.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/The-Congo-Report-English.pdf. African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, Report of the African Commission’s Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities: Research and Information Visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo, 9-25 August 2009, p. 76. The report was adopted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in 2011. Available from www.iwgia.org/iwgia_files_publications_files/0555_RDCENGELSK.pdf; and Anti-Slavery International, Arrested Development: Discrimination and Slavery in the 21st Century (2008), p. 24. Available from www.antislavery.org/includes/documents/cm_docs/2009/a/arresteddevelopment.pdf. Submission from the Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Foundation; and submission from ILO, “A rapid assessment of the tobacco sector in Malawi” (2015), p. 9. ILO, “A rapid assessment of the tobacco sector in Malawi”, pp. 25-29. Siddharth Kara, Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia (New York, Columbia University Press, 2012), pp. xiii and 6. GE.16-11363