India has a population of more than 1.3 billion people, there are still at least 270 million people living on less than US$1.90 per day. While laws, systems and attitudes regarding key 'fault lines' such as the caste system, gender and feudalism are rapidly changing, social change of this depth and scale necessarily takes time. In this context, it is perhaps unsurprising that existing research suggests that all forms of modern slavery continue to exist in India, including intergenerational bonded labour, forced child labour, commercial sexual exploitation, forced begging, forced recruitment into nonstate armed groups and forced marriage. Hakim describes the inter-generational nature of the kind of bonded labour he is subject to, having entered this kind of slavery as a small child when his father became bonded. He worries that if he stays in bonded labour that his children will be forced to do the same, and expresses a hope that he can pay off the contractor’s debt so that his children can get an education.