Verdingkinder, or “contract children”, or “indentured child laborers” were children in Switzerland who were taken from their parents, often due to poverty or moral reasons (e.g. the mother being unmarried, very poor, of gipsy origin, etc.), and sent to live with new families, often poor farmers who needed cheap labour. Many of these children, now adults, have now come forward to say that they were severely mistreated by their new families, suffering neglect, beatings and other physical and psychological abuse. The Verdingkinder scheme was common in Switzerland until the 1960s. Investigations by historian Marco Leuenberger brought to light that in 1930 there were some 35.000 indentured children; though he suspects the real figure was twice that much, and between 1920 and 1970 more than 100.000 are believed to have been placed with families or homes. There were auctions where children were handed over to the farmer asking least money from the authorities, thus securing cheap labour for his farm and relieving the authority from the financial burden of looking after the children. Cf. an article in the Badische Zeitung: This also states that in the 1930s 20% of all agricultural labour in the Canton of Bern were children below the age of 15.
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