In the Chuquisaca District in southern Bolivia, 6000 indigenous Guarani Indians live enslaved by debt. In the remote ‘La Zona’ – The Slave Zone – the Guarani Indians are owned by haciendados, the Spanish word for big land owners, who use them to do hard manual labor in the fields, herd the cattle or take care of the hacienda. They are not paid much despite working up to 16 hours a day, six days a week, from when the haciendado deem that they are old enough until they are too old.
The scheme that keeps the Guaranis enslaved is as simple as it is cruel. The haciendado insists that the Guaranis stay on his land, while demanding that they pay rent. Often the lot of land that he gives them is too small to give a reasonable yield, but the haciendado will step in with food supplements – again at a price that he determines. At the end of the month, the Guarani will end up owing money to his haciendado and the debt runs in the family, so that the Guarani’s children have to work for the haciendado to try to pay off the debts. Their children rarely go to school, and a Guarani will often die on the hacienda he or she was born in.
