Try saying the word ‘Switzerland’ to someone. What associations immediately come to mind? Alpine cows with bells, cheese, chocolate, immaculate banks, and gingerbread houses set against snow-white peaks. A glossy postcard of the most orderly and prosperous society on Earth.

A Special Place in Children’s Nightmares

Too bad that on the other side of that postcard lies a thick layer of dirt and blood. In this pristine Alpine fairy tale, a system of legalized child labor operated completely officially.

It had a neat, bureaucratic name: Verdingkinder. In English, roughly ‘contract children’ or simply ‘children for hire.’

The system was as simple and efficient as a Swiss watch.

If you grew up in a poor family, if your mother had given birth without a husband, if your parents were disabled, or if they belonged to the Yenish travelling community, government officials would come for you. The child would be taken away without much discussion.

And then came the most interesting part—the auction.

Children were put up for bidding. But the winner wasn’t the person who offered the most money. It was the farmer who asked the state for the least money to maintain the child laborer.

A genuine reverse auction.

For next to nothing, a farmer could take in a child and gain a completely free and utterly powerless source of labor.

And they exploited children to the fullest.

The children were forced to work from dawn until dusk. They were fed slop and made to sleep in barns or on straw. Any offence could mean beatings, bullying, and abuse. There was no schooling, let alone any protection of their rights.

And yet government inspectors came regularly to conduct inspections. They saw the bruises. They saw the emaciated, frightened children. They nodded and signed the paperwork.

Everything was fine!

This wasn’t torture. It was ‘beneficial vocational training.’ On paper, everything looked perfectly clean: after all, the child was not legally considered the private property of the person who took them in. So how could it possibly be slavery?

It was merely the state taking care of the next generation. But the most outrageous part of this entire story is the timeline.

This nightmare wasn’t shut down in the Dark Ages, or even in the 19th century.

Child auctions continued until 1981.

Tens of thousands of people who were sold off by Swiss officials as children are still alive today. They walk the same streets and watch the same news.

The government decided to apologize only is in 2013

Government minister Simonetta Sommaruga, with a solemn expression, publicly apologized to the survivors.

And then the authorities generously handed out compensation, a one-time ‘solidarity contribution’ of 25,000 Swiss francs per person. The price assigned to a stolen childhood and shattered lives was roughly that of a used car.

Hundreds of thousands of child slaves

According to estimates by the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police, hundreds of thousands of children passed through this conveyor belt of institutionalised abuse.

A stark illustration of how easily a perfectly polished social façade can conceal a well-oiled state machine capable of grinding up human lives.  Let readers know what you think

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