Modern-day slavery: an introduction
What is it?
What can be done?
How can you get involved?
Anti-Slavery International
Founded in 1839, we are committed to
eliminating all forms of slavery by:
• campaigning for its eradication,
• supporting local organisations’ initiatives to
release and rehabilitate people,
• pressing for implementation of laws against
this abuse.
What is modern slavery?
Slavery past: captured
Africans were transported
to the West Coast of Africa
for sale to Europeans.
Slavery present: child
domestic work in the
Philippines.
Slavery and international law
• The Slavery Convention, 1926
“Slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of
the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.”
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
“No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave
trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.”
• Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of
Slavery, The Slave Trade, and Institutions and
Practices Similar to Slavery, 1956
“Debt bondage, serfdom, forced marriage and the delivery of a child for
the exploitation of that child are all slavery like practices and require
criminalisation and abolishment.”
Some characteristics of slavery
• forced to work -- through mental or physical
threat;
• owned or controlled by an 'employer',
usually through mental or physical abuse or
threatened abuse;
• dehumanised, treated as a commodity or
bought and sold as 'property';
• physically constrained or has restrictions
placed on his/her freedom of movement.
Forms of slavery today
• Forced labour
• Human trafficking
• Bonded labour
• Some worst forms of child labour
• Descent-based slavery
Forced Labour
• “All work or service which is exacted from any
person under the menace of any penalty for
which the said person has not offered himself
voluntarily” The Forced Labour Convention 1930
(ILO Convention No.29)
• 12.3 million people are victims of forced
labour worldwide.
Forced labour in UAE
Legal definition of trafficking
• Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment,
transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of person, by
means of the threat of the use of force or other forms of
coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse
of power or a position of vulnerability or of giving or receiving
payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having
control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Exploitation shall include, at minimum, the exploitation of the
prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation,
forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to
slavery or servitude or the removal of organs. Article 3 (a) of
the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in
Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing
the United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organised Crime (November 2000)Trafficking Protocol
Trafficking in Europe: Adriana
Trafficking in the UK
Bonded Labour
• A person becomes a bonded labourer
when their labour is demanded as a
means of repayment for a loan.
• They loose control of work conditions
and their debt becomes inflated.
Bonded labour in agriculture
Unconditional worst forms of Child
Labour
• Article 32 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child (1989)
“State parties recognise the right of the child to be protected from
economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be
hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education or to be harmful to
the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social
development.”
• 8.4 million children
•
•
•
•
•
Forced and bonded labour
Prostitution and pornography
Child soldiers
Other illicit activity (drug smuggling)
*Trafficked children
5.7 m
1.8 m
0.3 m
0.6 m
1.2 m
Child labour
Descent-based Slavery
• People are born into slavery or are
compelled to work for others because of
their caste or ethnic group.
• People are literally owned by others.
Slavery in Niger: Boulboulou
Hadjiatou Mani – Landmark ECOWAS
case
Combating slavery – achievements
Descent based slavery in Niger
Work with local partners, research, lobbying,
campaigning and media.
New law, freed slaves, changed attitudes,
government engagement
Trafficking in the UK
Campaigning, lobbying, joint work, research,
awareness raising, media.
New domestic and international legislation, safe
housing, heightened awareness
In both cases there is more work to be done.
Slavery and you
• Get informed: visit www.antislavery.org and
see the resources list
• Take action, join the Campaigns Network
• Subscribe to Anti-Slavery International
• Change your lifestyle: buy fair trade
Join the Fight for Freedom Declaration
Tens of thousands of ordinary
people signed petitions as part of
the campaign to abolish the
Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Sign the Declaration and call for
measures to:
•
•
•
commemorate the Transatlantic
Slave Trade and its abolition
address its legacies
work for the eradication of all
forms of slavery today
Sign online at
www.antislavery.org/2007