Female workers who enter factory work in Sri Lanka’s Free Trade Zones (FTZs) via contractors are not forced to join or remain in contractor labor pools. This paper, however, argues that such workers nevertheless remain unfree due to cultural and emotional bonds that restrict labor mobility. By analyzing how contracted workers’ entry and mobility within work get shaped by a coalition of patriarchal agents—parents, contractors and factory management—the paper demonstrates how compulsive emotional conditions, that I term “invisible bondage,” are produced and maintained. While the degree of compulsion varies depending on the particular form of labor contracting (i.e., Tamil women from the war torn areas recruited by military personnel, or daily hired workers), I show that all labor contracting for global production represent how forms of unfreedoms are interwoven into supposedly free market relations of production. Such invisible controls, I argue, are essential for neoliberal capitalism to thrive.

通过承包商进入斯里兰卡自由贸易区（FTZ）的工厂工作的女工，不会被迫加入或留在承包商的劳力中。但是，本文认为，由于文化和情感纽带限制了劳动力的流动性，这些工人仍然没有自由。通过分析由父权代理人（父母，承包商和工厂管理者）组成的联盟，承包工人的进入和工作流动性是如何形成的，该论文说明了如何产生和维持强迫性情绪条件，我称之为“隐形束缚”。虽然强迫程度根据劳务合同的特定形式而有所不同（例如，军事人员或每日雇用的工人从战乱地区招募的泰米尔妇女），我表明，所有为全球生产进行的劳动合同都代表着各种形式的自由如何交织到所谓的自由市场生产关系中。我认为，这种无形的控制对于新自由主义资本主义的繁荣至关重要。