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Priorities of the new mandate holder
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Year
- 2014
- Document code
- A/HRC/27/53
- Date modified
- Sep 19, 2019
Document
Servile marriage
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Year
- 2012
- Document code
- A/HRC/21/41
- Date modified
- Sep 19, 2019
Document
Eradicating contemporary forms of slavery from supply chains
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Year
- 2015
- Document code
- A/HRC/30/35
- Date modified
- Sep 19, 2019
Document
Challenges and lessons in combating contemporary forms of slavery
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Year
- 2013
- Document code
- A/HRC/24/43
- Date modified
- Sep 19, 2019
Document
Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Year
- 2016
- Document code
- A/HRC/33/46
- Date modified
- Sep 19, 2019
Document
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Year
- 2010
- Document code
- A/HRC/15/20
- Date modified
- Sep 19, 2019
Document
Child slavery in the artisanal mining and quarrying sector
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Year
- 2011
- Document code
- A/HRC/18/30
- Date modified
- Oct 24, 2019
Document
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 48
- Paragraph text
- Relevant economic factors include advance or deferred payment designed to increase dependency, payment that keeps workers below the poverty level, payment in kind only or prohibitions to freely change employers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2010
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 88
- Paragraph text
- Building on these norms, the committees of independent experts overseeing State parties' compliance with the obligations assumed under these treaties (treaty bodies) have made repeated references to the exploitation of domestic workers in their concluding observations on country reports. Conversely, individual complaints mechanisms, including the Special Rapporteur's communications procedure, remain underutilized. In its general comment No. 28 on gender equality, the Human Rights Committee has made specific references to slavery disguised, inter alia, as domestic or other kinds of personal service. When the present document was being finalized, the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families was discussing a general comment on migrant domestic workers, with a view to adopting it at the end of 2010.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 32
- Paragraph text
- On 22 February 2008, in Prosecutor v. Brima et al, the Special Court for Sierra Leone recognized forced marriage as a crime against humanity under international criminal law for the first time. The Court confirmed that forced marriage involved a perpetrator compelling a person by force or threat of force, through words, or conduct of the perpetrator, or anyone associated with him, into a forced conjugal association resulting in great suffering or serious physical or mental injury on the part of the victim. It concluded that forced marriage might also include one or more international crimes such as enslavement, imprisonment, rape, sexual slavery and abduction.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Harmful Practices
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 45
- Paragraph text
- In some communities, honour is connected with virtue, good works, righteous behaviour and obligations to one's parents, older persons and the community. Honour-related killings have often been associated with religious beliefs. These, however, are traditional or cultural practices. Among some Asian tribes, honour (or izzat) is associated with the female body and therefore women and girls must be guarded, protected and passed on to another member of the tribe. A girl or woman dishonours her family and tribe if her body is violated, even by force, and the shame can be cleansed only through her death.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Priorities of the new mandate holder 2014, para. 30
- Paragraph text
- The mandate also requires a multi-faceted approach combining law and policy frameworks which provide for prevention, protection, prosecution and redress at the national and international levels, with consumer and civil society advocacy, rejecting goods produced through forced labour or other forms of slave labour and generating consumer awareness. It also requires that business practices be congruent with human rights, ethical and environmentally sound sustainable development, and durable peace and security for all. It requires a concerted global initiative to eradicate poverty and enforce the basic principles of justice, dignity and human rights for all. At the most basic level, it requires resources, mechanisms and processes for the effective implementation of recommendations made pursuant to fact-finding missions and consultations conducted as part of the mandate.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Priorities of the new mandate holder 2014, para. 21
- Paragraph text
- In that regard, the Special Rapporteur will follow up on the key recommendations made by her predecessor for the elimination of all forms of domestic servitude. In her report to the Human Rights Council at its fifteenth session (A/HRC/15/20), the previous Special Rapporteur addressed the root causes of domestic servitude and its impact on women and children and made concrete recommendations for the monitoring and enforcement of labour standards. Besides the implementation of existing recommendations, which remains a key challenge, more research, notably qualitative reporting and situational analysis, is required on the often invisible workers in domestic servitude, including their existence in developed economies, which is often obscured.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Women
- Year
- 2014
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Priorities of the new mandate holder 2014, para. 29
- Paragraph text
- The mandate calls for a coherent global response, involving evidence-based analysis, together with technical assistance to Member States which are committed to eradicating the scourge of contemporary slavery from their labour markets. It requires strengthening of the global partnership, involving unions, civil society organizations, non-governmental organizations, human rights advocates, the private sector, the legal sector and the judiciary, governments and public-sector institutions, United Nations agencies and mechanisms, academic and research institutions, as well as international foundations committed to research and advocacy.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Priorities of the new mandate holder 2014, para. 28
- Paragraph text
- Another key area of focus of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, is child and forced marriage. The Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery obligates Member States to take all "practicable and necessary legislative and other measures to bring about progressively and as soon as possible the complete abolition or abandonment" of, inter alia, any institution or practice which amounts to forced marriage, such as when a woman, without the right to refuse, is promised or given in marriage on payment to her parents, guardians, family or another person or group; when a husband, his family or his clan transfers his wife to another person for value received or for any other reason; or the inheriting by another person of a woman on the death of her husband (see art. 1). Early and forced marriage can, under certain circumstances, constitute servile marriage or result in domestic servitude or other forms of slavery. The previous mandate holder drew links between child marriage and slavery, and pointed out that Member States were obliged to prohibit and eliminate slavery as a non-derogable and fundamental principle of international law. Child marriage is linked to the thematic issues of trafficking for forced labour, commercial sexual exploitation, migration and contemporary forms of slavery, which reinforces the need for cooperation among the respective mandate holders as part of a comprehensive multi-agency and multi-stakeholder effort to eradicate those practices from society, as women and girls in child and forced marriages may experience conditions within the marriage that meet "international legal definitions of slavery and slavery-like practices", including forced labour. Furthermore, "a potentially high proportion of child marriage cases appear to constitute the worst forms of child labour under the 1999 ILO Convention No. 182."
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2014
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Priorities of the new mandate holder 2014, para. 18
- Paragraph text
- During her tenure, the Special Rapporteur will continue to address the different forms of contemporary slavery, including subtler forms of slavery that deserve specific attention, such as bonded labour, domestic servitude, early and forced marriage, child slave work, servile marriages and caste-based forms of slavery, which affect the lives of many and are not confined to developing and poor countries. She will also continue to work on the remaining challenges to the eradication of contemporary forms of slavery, as highlighted by her predecessor in her report to the Human Rights Council at its twenty-fourth session (A/HRC/24/43).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Priorities of the new mandate holder 2014, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- In accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 24/3, the newly appointed Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, will examine and report on all contemporary forms of slavery and slavery-like practices, in particular those defined in the Slavery Convention of 1926 and the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery of 1956, as well as all other issues covered previously by the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery. She will also continue to promote the effective implementation of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29) and the 2014 Protocol thereto, as well as ILO Convention No. 189 (2011) and Recommendation No. 201 concerning decent work for domestic workers, which represent a significant advance in the international legal framework protecting the rights of domestic workers, including the right to education for child domestic workers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Year
- 2014
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Challenges and lessons in combating contemporary forms of slavery 2013, para. 96
- Paragraph text
- Companies should engage with other actors across their industries and sectors; advocate for global action on contemporary forms of slavery both unilaterally and through membership or multi-stakeholder organizations; adopt codes of conduct and other corporate policies that explicitly prohibit forced labour and contemporary slavery; ensure that these policies are integrated throughout the company's management and performance systems; train all relevant staff, suppliers and other business partners on contemporary forms of slavery, and ensure that actions are taken beyond the first tier of the supply chain, where risks are greatest; and carry out risks assessments, audits and other forms of due diligence to determine, identify and root out any potential risk of exploitation.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Priorities of the new mandate holder 2014, para. 31
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur looks forward to fulfilling the requirements of her mandate, as outlined in Human Rights Council resolution 24/3, and to constructive and fruitful cooperation with diverse stakeholders in all regions towards that end. She particularly emphasizes her desire for constructive engagement with United Nations Member States and encourages Member States to respond positively to her requests for information or for country visits, while emphasizing that the mandate remains available to provide assistance to States and to respond to their requests, including in the area of technical cooperation, to the fullest extent possible. The Special Rapporteur reiterates the importance that she places on the role and views of non-governmental organizations, including in providing information to her and engaging with and assisting her fully as she conducts her work on slavery and slavery-like practices.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Civil & Political Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Priorities of the new mandate holder 2014, para. 27
- Paragraph text
- It is essential to ensure standardized disaggregated data collection (with due regard to individuals' rights to privacy and data protection) and the strengthening of national legislative frameworks to ensure that violations of human and labour rights resulting in slavery are effectively monitored and swiftly eradicated through strict legal, judicial and institutional enforcement of measures, with appropriate rehabilitation and remedies. In addition, the early identification and prevention of forced labour through the cooperation of multiple stakeholders, including governments, civil society organizations, the private sector, trade unions and consumers, are critical.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Eradicating contemporary forms of slavery from supply chains 2015, para. 23
- Paragraph text
- In agriculture, contemporary forms of slavery have reportedly occurred in many countries, involving crops such as sugar cane, cut flowers, fruit and vegetables, tropical nuts and commodities, for example, palm oil, cotton, cocoa, tobacco and beef. Production in the sector often relies on temporary or migrant labour and is characterized by complex contracting and subcontracting chains, as well as smallholder farming in some cases. Much of the work on remote farms and plantations is typified by excessive working hours, lack of compliance with labour laws, weak or non-existent labour inspections and corruption. Competition to produce at the lowest cost enhances the risk of contemporary forms of slavery being involved in agriculture, especially debt bondage in impoverished rural communities and among vulnerable categories of workers, such as indigenous people, minorities, migrants, women and children.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Ethnic minorities
- Persons on the move
- Women
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Eradicating contemporary forms of slavery from supply chains 2015, para. 15
- Paragraph text
- In the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery of 1956, the protection of the right is extended to include "institutions and practices similar to slavery", i.e. debt bondage, serfdom, servile marriage and delivering a child for exploitation. Child economic exploitation and child hazardous labour are further prohibited in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (art. 10 (3)) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (art. 32). In the International Labour Organization (ILO) Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182), the elimination of the worst forms of child labour is called for, which are defined as including all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage, serfdom and forced or compulsory labour as well as hazardous work (art. 3).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Eradicating contemporary forms of slavery from supply chains 2015, para. 33
- Paragraph text
- In 2014, the draft Business Supply Chain Transparency on Trafficking and Slavery Act of 2014 was introduced into the United States Congress. The Act, not yet adopted, contains, inter alia, reporting requirements for businesses relating to the disclosure of conditions amounting to forced labour, slavery, human trafficking and the worst forms of child labour in supply chains. At the time of writing the present report, a draft law on business human rights due diligence in supply chains was pending before the Senate in France, after having been adopted by the National Assembly in the first reading in March 2015.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Eradicating contemporary forms of slavery from supply chains 2015, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- Multi-stakeholder initiatives help to address questions of credibility and effectiveness that have surrounded business-only and corporate social responsibility strategies. They offer a more inclusive model as they involve various stakeholders and thus provide a long-term solution to addressing risks to contemporary forms of slavery in supply chains. Those multi-stakeholder platforms that are genuinely premised on social partnership and involve trade unions have the additional benefit that they can ensure collaboration across a number of initiatives including public-policy advocacy and grievance resolution.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Eradicating contemporary forms of slavery from supply chains 2015, para. 58
- Paragraph text
- As part of its duty to protect against business-related human rights abuses, the State is required to take appropriate steps to ensure that those affected have access to effective remedy when abuses occur within their territory and/or jurisdiction and to reduce barriers that could lead to a denial of this access. In the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, it is indicated that this is to be achieved primarily through State-based judicial mechanisms and non-judicial grievance mechanisms, which are complementary in nature (principles 25-27). States are also encouraged to consider ways to facilitate access to effective non-State based grievance mechanisms that can have the benefit of reduced costs, increased speed of access and transnational reach, where States may be more limited. These may be non-judicial business, industry or multi-stakeholder mechanisms; or they may be regional or international human rights bodies (see principle 28).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Eradicating contemporary forms of slavery from supply chains 2015, para. 39
- Paragraph text
- Although the assessment of the efficacy of these legislative developments in practice is beyond the scope of the present report, they provide a snapshot of the issues that impact on the challenge of States to regulate the human rights conduct of businesses operating supply chains outside domestic economies. In these cases, risks and violations are often off-shored, resulting in lack of redress under domestic laws, but having significant impact on the human rights situation in developing economies. This results in challenges to effectively address business-related human rights harms in supply chains and requires sustainable and holistic solutions that involve all stakeholders in the supply chain.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Eradicating contemporary forms of slavery from supply chains 2015, para. 40
- Paragraph text
- In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, every individual and every organ of society is required to strive to contribute to the universal and effective recognition and observance of human rights for all. While it is commonly accepted that under international human rights law businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights, there is as yet no international legal duty for them to protect human rights. Human rights due diligence, i.e. a continuous process of identifying and addressing the human rights impact of a company across its operations and products, and throughout its supplier and business partner networks, is therefore the primary standard used to assess business compliance with its human rights responsibilities.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Eradicating contemporary forms of slavery from supply chains 2015, para. 50
- Paragraph text
- Another strategy in tackling the risk of contemporary forms of slavery in supply chains relates to transparency and reporting, on the one hand, and traceability, on the other. In both cases, pressure from regulators, civil society actors and investors has pushed companies not only to disclose information about business relationships in supply chains, but to implement measures to track products and materials from finished goods to the commodities level to promote "clean" production at every step of the way. However, opinion remains divided on the effectiveness of these initiatives in improving conditions for workers and, in particular, for addressing contemporary forms of slavery.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Eradicating contemporary forms of slavery from supply chains 2015, para. 30
- Paragraph text
- In the context of contemporary forms of slavery, this duty to protect could translate into a smart mix of measures to ensure that businesses engage in their responsibility to respect human rights, including through undertaking human rights due diligence throughout their supply chains and remediating the adverse impact of their operations on human rights. At the very minimum, States should ensure that businesses realize the implications of purchasing products or services that have in any way been linked to forced labour or other contemporary forms of slavery. To date, States have adopted diverse approaches to addressing this issue, which include ensuring criminal, civil and tort liability for business-related human rights violations, setting up mechanisms to regulate such compliance in trade and consumer protection and addressing it in government procurement. Disclosure and transparency can also feature as legal obligations rather than being limited to voluntary corporate social responsibility initiatives.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph
Eradicating contemporary forms of slavery from supply chains 2015, para. 28
- Paragraph text
- States have an obligation under international human rights law to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of all persons in their territory and/or jurisdiction. This includes the duty to protect individuals and groups against human rights abuses committed by private actors, such as business enterprises. The Human Rights Committee, in paragraph 8 of its general comment No. 31 (2004) on the nature of general legal obligations on States Parties to the Covenant, stipulates the need for States to exercise due diligence to prevent, punish, investigate or redress the harm caused by private persons or entities.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
- Date modified
- Feb 13, 2020
Paragraph