Systemic Participatory Action Research and Learning within Large-Scale Operational Programs to Eradicate Bonded Labor in India

Abstract

This paper describes the implementation of a large-scale systemic participatory action research program which was designed to encourage community-based solutions to bonded labor in India. The program focuses on workers in brick kilns and stone quarries and, to some extent, on sex workers in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and on cotton-mill workers in Tamil Nadu. It runs in parallel to programmatic interventions by local NGOs. The paper looks at the methodological challenges of fully engaging a mostly illiterate, extremely marginalized population on a highly political and complex issue in order to generate community-led solutions, and the process of taking that to scale. The program resulted in extensive methodological innovation and substantive changes to the lives of villagers.

Keywords

participatory action research India bonded labor modern slavery child labor

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