A little of Christmas hope.....
Not quoting anybody in this thread, but I'll try to help and answer the desperation.
It is of basic common sense that a company would and should protect its business by bonding the people they train at a high cost.
It is also of basic common sense that a person has to check, verify and seek advice before signing a contract, and once it is signed, the contract is binding. Screwed? NO.
In a country ruled by law, there are provisions to protect citizens from abusive practices, and beyond that from discriminations.
Obviously, some countries, though ruled by law, have a very poor system of law enforcement, and for laws that are more often than not obsolete and/or inadequate. However, the law of that country has to be addressed first.
Then of course, the judiciary system of that country may well be not totally independent from the executive and/or legislative, and obviously sometimes influenced by the corporate interests. Bear with me, I've got to be careful.
When the rescourse of the national law has shown to be iniquitably fruitless, there is alway the rescourse of a more independent and superior instance....in a Grand Duchy.
An individual has little time and resource to proceed on this road, but then he can be assisted by the professional association to which he/she is affiliated.
In other words: 1) get arbitration from the ombutsman via the union.
2) That doesn't work, go to civil court. There, it would be more difficult for TupTup to justify the need for such an abusive bonding. However, like for marriage annullement, procrastination can take you to retirement age, so there is...
3) EU courts. a) for abusive bonding and b) discrimination in relation to other labour elements.
Will it work? Nothing is granted, nothing is guaranteed, but it has worked in many other similar cases in EU, and even in a much less democratic country like Taiwan, where EVA AIR was forced to halve the bond on young Chinese ab-initions pilots.
Good luck and a merry serene Christmas to you all.