A/HRC/12/21 page 13 led to the aggravation of the bondage of women and children. Historically, a work contract established between an employer and a head of household required all members of the labourer’s family to work for the employer; individual family members did not need to establish separate contracts. Now, however, women and girls are increasingly bonded in their own right. They are often bonded in domestic work, fish processing, silk farming, bangle production, carpet making and weaving industries. Occurrences of bonded labour 55. Based on responses to questionnaires, the Special Rapporteur has determined that bonded labour is mainly used by private individuals rather than the State. Bonded labour can take place in the area of residence of the indebted person or in another city or country. 56. According to information received, bonded labourers are predominant in logging companies and on private ranches. In the former, some company bosses are able to exploit the labour of indigenous communities to extract valuable timber, without actually controlling the land. Middlemen approach indigenous communities and offer them advances in the form of basic goods, public goods (such as building a school or playing field), or money. These advances form part of a verbal or written contract whereby the community agrees to provide the middleman with an amount of timber of a specified quality, although usually the contract does not specify the price of the timber.17 The communities are then charged excessively high prices for the goods provided while the timber is undervalued. 57. On private ranches, the debt arises from a number of different factors. Indigenous workers often receive far below the minimum wage. In addition, in many instances it can take many months before they receive payment for their work. During this time, workers will buy food and other essential provisions at the estate shop where prices may be inflated. This means that most, if not all, of their salary may be used to pay off their outstanding debts at the estate shop and some will have an ongoing debt from one payday to the next. Debt can also be transferred from generation to generation, with sons inheriting their fathers’ debts. In many cases, when the father dies, the rest of the family remains tied to the ranch by the debt. 58. ILO research shows that the manipulation of credit and debt, either by employers or by recruiting agents, is still a key factor that traps vulnerable workers in forced labour situations. Poor peasants and indigenous peoples in Asia and Latin America may be induced into indebtedness, through accepting relatively small but cumulative loans or wage advances from employers or recruiters at a time of scarcity. Alternatively, aspirant migrants may have to pay very large amounts to the agents who help them. The 2007 ILO General Survey included in its 17 Alvaro Bedoya Silvia-Santisteban and Eduardo Bedoya Garland, El Trabajo Forzoso en la Extracción de la Madera en la Amazonia Peruana, ILO, Geneva, 2005, p. 5.