peonage

Some 50 million people are in debt peonage to student loan companies.

This debt peonage forces graduates to major in subjects useful to corporations and is part of the reason why the humanities are withering away.

Rather, the poorer and more vulnerable you are, the more you are exploited, thrust into a hellish debt peonage from which there is no escape.

They are exploited and thrown into debt peonage with no escape.

Born in Peru, he was a shaman who worked on cotton plantations in conditions of debt peonage, a system by which Indigenous peoples were forced to work for a pittance, purchasing their necessities from their oppressors at extortionate prices, rendering them permanently indebted.