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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
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 22
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur is particularly concerned about the high number of children in domestic work (see section 2c). Children are often sought for domestic work as they are seen as cheaper, less demanding and easier to control than adults. There are large numbers of child domestic workers in all continents, with the highest number probably residing in Asia. For example, ILO reports that 175,000 children under 18 are employed in domestic service in Central America, more than 688,000 in Indonesia, 53,942 children under 15 in South Africa and 38,000 children between 5 and 7 in Guatemala. Girls constitute the vast majority of child domestic workers (90 per cent according to some estimates). According to ILO, more girls under 16 years are in domestic service than in any other category of child labour.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 90
- Paragraph text
- At the regional level, the Council of Europe has shown leadership in taking up the issue. In its recommendation 1663 (2004) on domestic slavery, servitude, au pairs and "mail-order brides", the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe expressed dismay that slavery still exists in Europe, while highlighting that "today's slaves are predominantly female and usually work in private households". Human rights bodies of the African Union and the Organization of American States have addressed concerns relating to domestic workers. From 17 to 18 June 2010, the Special Rapporteur participated in a major conference on trafficking for the purpose of domestic servitude organized by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
- 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
- Women
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 92
- Paragraph text
- Although the victims are largely invisible, domestic servitude constitutes a global human rights concern. Every region in the world is affected. Domestic servitude takes many shape and forms, ranging from slavery as understood by the 1926 Slavery Convention to slavery-like practices, such as bonded domestic labour and child domestic labour. Millions of women and girls, pursuing the opportunities that domestic work provides, while providing a valuable contribution to society, are at risk because their rights, equal human dignity and autonomy are not adequately protected.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 64
- Paragraph text
- Feminized poverty pushes women and girls into domestic work and makes them easy to exploit. Women, who often carry the burden of providing for children, suffer disproportionally from cuts to welfare programmes and essential public services in a situation of economic crisis and budget cuts. In many countries, the collapse of entire agricultural sectors, often linked to inequitable terms of trade, has driven also women and girls into rural-urban or international migrations. With the supply of cheap, desperate labour outstripping demand, power relationships are often so grossly unequal that the degree of exploitation endured by domestic workers depends on the employer's will.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 78
- Paragraph text
- Some countries have introduced standard contracts for migrant domestic workers that provide certain minimum standards of employment. In 2007, for example, the United Arab Emirates introduced a standard contract for domestic workers that details entitlements relating to wages, rest breaks, payment of salaries and medical treatment. Lebanon followed suit in 2009. Standard contracts constitute a significant advance, although many still fall short of guaranteeing minimum international standards, including non-discrimination between different types of workers. The introduction of standard contracts can supplement, but not substitute labour legislation. Effective labour laws protect domestic workers by setting out penalties, monitoring systems, accessible complaint mechanisms and effective remedies that go beyond the inherent limits of contract law.
- 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
- Health
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 79
- Paragraph text
- Even where there are laws and contracts that are meant to protect domestic workers, they are often inadequately enforced. Sometimes employers do not even have to register live-in domestic workers. There are no meaningful complaints mechanisms or the authorities fail to adequately follow up complaints. In many countries, the authorities also lack the legal power or human resources to follow up violations taking place in private homes. A positive exception is Uruguay, where the Labour and Social Security Inspectorate can obtain judicial authorization to conduct home inspections in cases of presumed labour law violations; the inspectorate has created a special section to monitor domestic work. Other countries require that employers ensure that live-in domestic workers attend periodic, private interviews with labour inspectors. This breaks their isolation and allows them to report abuse and exploitation.
- 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
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 93
- Paragraph text
- [The criminalization of all forms of slavery and servitude, in line with States' international obligations, is one aspect of an effective response. At the same time, the issue is embedded in the wider challenge to ensure that domestic workers are finally provided with equal protection of their labour rights. Combating domestic servitude and protecting domestic workers' rights are two sides of the same coin. The Special Rapporteur recommends that States:] Curtail practices that reinforce dependency, including by prohibiting employment agencies from charging fees to domestic workers (rather than employers), prohibiting payment in kind and prohibiting advance or deferred payment schemes designed to create dependence.
- 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
- All
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 93
- Paragraph text
- [The criminalization of all forms of slavery and servitude, in line with States' international obligations, is one aspect of an effective response. At the same time, the issue is embedded in the wider challenge to ensure that domestic workers are finally provided with equal protection of their labour rights. Combating domestic servitude and protecting domestic workers' rights are two sides of the same coin. The Special Rapporteur recommends that States:] Extend the equal protection of their labour laws to domestic workers, including migrant domestic workers, and end any discriminatory denial of entitlements regarding working hours, rest days, vacation, health care, maternity leave and protection from unfair dismissal.
- 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
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 93
- Paragraph text
- [The criminalization of all forms of slavery and servitude, in line with States' international obligations, is one aspect of an effective response. At the same time, the issue is embedded in the wider challenge to ensure that domestic workers are finally provided with equal protection of their labour rights. Combating domestic servitude and protecting domestic workers' rights are two sides of the same coin. The Special Rapporteur recommends that States:] Require that domestic workers receive a written contract in a language they can understand and that wage payments are made into a bank account. States should set a minimum wage for all domestic workers, including migrants, that should be above the poverty line of the country concerned and under no circumstances lower than the World Bank reference line indicating poverty (currently set at US$ 2 per day). Any additional payments in kind should not be counted towards the minimum wage.
- 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
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 32
- Paragraph text
- The mechanization of agriculture, rural-urban migration and the development of labour-intensive export industries, coupled with the erosion of workers' rights outside the traditional bonded labour context, have led to the emergence of patterns of "neo-bondage", whereby destitute people commit themselves to working off loans or wage advances obtained from their employer and cannot default on this debt, not least due to a fear of extrajudicial enforcement. In this context, researchers note an increasing feminization of bonded labour and some of the victims end up in bonded domestic servitude.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 70
- Paragraph text
- While this is most obvious with regard to the enduring patterns of domestic slavery, most domestic workers will be confronted one way or another with discrimination. During the course of her missions to Ecuador (A/HRC/15/20/Add.3) and Brazil (A/HRC/15/20/Add.4), the Special Rapporteur noted that girls of Afro-descent were far more likely to end up in domestic servitude than more light-skinned Brazilians. A study found that 69 per cent of children in domestic work in Brazil classified themselves as "black", compared to 31 per cent who considered themselves "white".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 75
- Paragraph text
- Many States do not afford domestic workers the equal protection of labour law, which invites exploitation, leading, in extreme cases, to domestic servitude. In a number of States, domestic work is excluded from the scope of application of relevant labour laws. At best, parallel regimes are set up that provide lesser standards of protection. It is very common to exclude domestic workers from essential social benefits such as health care, compensation in case of invalidity, pensions or maternity leave and labour rights such as paid vacations, rest days or maximum work hours.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 94
- Paragraph text
- [Children are particularly vulnerable to domestic servitude, especially if they live with their employers and/or migrate on their own to find domestic work:] States should prohibit live-in domestic work for migrant or local children younger than 18 years, since it is typically inherently hazardous. Other domestic work of children who are younger than 15 or still completing their mandatory education should be prohibited to the extent that it interferes with their schooling.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 60
- Paragraph text
- While links with other forms of organized violent crime cannot be excluded, trafficking into domestic servitude usually takes places under the cover of activities that seem legal or enjoy widespread social acceptance. Agents recruiting domestic workers become perpetrators of trafficking, if they deliberately deceive their clients about the conditions of work or engage in illegal practices of control (such as the withholding of passports), while knowing that such practices will result in the exploitation of their recruits.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Violence
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 24
- Paragraph text
- The line between domestic work, albeit accompanied by serious violations of fair labour standards, and domestic servitude and slavery is difficult to draw. In practice, there is a wide spectrum ranging from domestic workers engaged in labour relationships that follow applicable labour and human rights standards to victims of domestic servitude and slavery. Owing to the criminal and hence clandestine nature of servitude and slavery, it is impossible to determine what percentage of domestic workers are actually victims thereof.
- 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
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 38
- Paragraph text
- In many cases, poverty will make parents involuntary accomplices to the exploitation of their own children. In Haiti (see A/HRC/12/21/Add.1), parents from poor families will often send one or more of their children to stay with more affluent families, who may be relatives, family friends or complete strangers. In its idealized form, the practice should ensure that the host family takes care of the child and pays for its schooling, while expecting the child in return to take up a modest set of household chores. In reality, the majority of the estimated 150,000-500,000 so-called restavèk children in Haiti are exploited in domestic servitude. They frequently work extremely long hours without pay, are deprived of schooling, health care and adequate food or shelter and often suffer physical and sexual abuse. The practice is so associated with abuse that the word restavèk (which literally means "to stay with" in Haitian Creole) has become a pejorative term.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 40
- Paragraph text
- Increasingly, parents are implicated in the exploitation of children in the general market for domestic labour. Some parents do so with the belief that their children will be provided with formal education and work. Deceiving the parents, the intermediaries often end up trafficking the children into domestic servitude or other forms of exploitation. In Ecuador (see A/HRC/15/20/Add.3), children are "rented" by their parents or others to third parties who can employ them at their will. Many of the victims are exploited in domestic servitude. Reports of the Council of Europe express concern about the international trafficking of children aged from 8 to 15 years from West Africa to Europe, where they are exploited in domestic labour, usually in the households of compatriots. Underlying such practices is a failure to recognize children as full human beings with equal rights. Instead, children are treated as commodities who can be moved around and exploited for the benefit of adults.
- 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
- Families
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 42
- Paragraph text
- Children find it especially difficult to extract themselves from situations of domestic servitude. The relationship between the employer and child usually starts out seemingly well before exploitation and abuse become obvious. Consequently, the children feel that they are in the wrong and stay for fear of 'failing' their families. Children who have been sexually abused find it difficult to leave because of the shame of 'being spoiled' and when they do leave, are afraid to go back to their families and end up in the streets. Child domestic workers who migrated or were trafficked long distances often face financial, language and cultural barriers preventing their return home.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 43
- Paragraph text
- Forced marriage combines sexual exploitation with domestic servitude. The victims are forced to perform household chores in line with gendered stereotypes, while submitting to their husbands' sexual demands. The link between forced marriages and servitude is explicitly recognized by article 1 (c) of the 1956 Supplementary Convention on Slavery, which considers women to be persons of servile status if they have been subjected to: "Any institution or practice whereby: (i) A woman, without the right to refuse, is promised or given in marriage on payment of a consideration in money or in kind to her parents, guardian, family or any other person or group; or (ii) The husband of a woman, his family, or his clan, has the right to transfer her to another person for value received or otherwise; or (iii) A woman on the death of her husband is liable to be inherited by another person."
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 45
- Paragraph text
- Child marriages, unions that involve at least one partner below the minimum legal age of marriage, constitute a form of forced marriage since the child is not in a position to consent. Article 16 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women specifies that "the betrothal and the marriage of a child shall have no legal effect, and all necessary action, including legislation, shall be taken to specify a minimum age for marriage". The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women considers that the minimum age for marriage should be 18 years for both man and woman. This age limit, which is in line with the definition of the child provided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is also reflected in the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (art. 21).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Harmful Practices
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Women
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 47
- Paragraph text
- Servitude and other slavery-like practices prohibited by article 8 of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights extend beyond the specific instances recognized by the 1956 Supplementary Convention on Slavery and includes other cases of economic exploitation in which the victim is so dependent on the perpetrator that s/he cannot leave the situation of exploitation. Dependency in this context can derive from a multiplicity of physical, economic, social, cultural, psychological and legal factors. While each factor may by itself not be strong enough to create the severe dependency characterizing servitude, the factors may reinforce each other creating a net of dependency factors from which the victim cannot extract herself.
- 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
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- Migrant domestic workers commonly have a particularly precarious residence status, making them dependent on their employer and hence easy to exploit. A number of countries in Asia and the Middle East (where the system is known as kafalah) still tie a domestic worker's visa to a particular family. The domestic worker is only allowed to change visa sponsors without the employers' consent in exceptional circumstances that are, in practice, hard to invoke. A live-in worker who is dismissed can find herself from one moment to the next in the street with no income, legal residence status, family support network, return air ticket or right to seek another job.
- 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
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- Their physical and social isolation, which is at times deliberately fostered by unscrupulous employers, interferes with their human right to freely organize and associate. The highly personalized relationship with the employer makes collective bargaining very difficult. Despite these obstacles, domestic workers are increasingly forming organizations. There are now a number of domestic workers associations doing outstanding work and some pioneers have even organized themselves into domestic worker cooperatives. Labour unions also increasingly incorporate domestic workers.
- 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
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 30
- Paragraph text
- Among the instances leading to domestic servitude is debt bondage, also referred to as bonded labour (see for information A/HRC/12/21). Article 1 (a) of the 1956 Supplementary Convention on Slavery defines debt bondage as "the status or condition arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or of those of a person under his control as security for a debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined".
- 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
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 95
- Paragraph text
- [In the case of live-in domestic workers, the identity of work place and home is deeply problematic as it makes this group dangerously isolated. In order to limit and regulate live-in domestic work, States should:] Require employers to undergo a mandatory awareness raising training before employing live-in workers. Employers should be obliged to register live-in workers and ensure that they present themselves to periodic private interviews with labour inspectors.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 23
- Paragraph text
- Owing to the indicated vulnerabilities, domestic workers are often subject to unfair and exploitative labour practices. Some are paid way below minimum wage standards or not at all, while others are confronted with the arbitrary deduction or withholding of wages. Many domestic workers are expected to live with their employers, yet are only offered sub-standard or degrading living conditions. Live-in workers might be expected to work 16-18 hours a day, be always on call and forego regular rest days and vacations. They frequently face restrictions on their freedom of communication and movement. Physical, emotional and sexual abuse is also common.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 25
- Paragraph text
- Slavery and servitude have in common that the victim is economically exploited, totally dependent on other individuals and cannot end the relationship at his or her own volition. In cases of slavery, as classically defined by the Slavery, Servitude, Forced Labour and Similar Institutions and Practices Convention of 1926, the perpetrator puts forward a claim to "own" the victim that is sustained by custom, social practice or domestic law, even though it violates international law. In servitude and slavery like practices, no such claim to formal ownership exists. This does not mean that servitude is the lesser human rights violation: the humiliation, exploitation and suffering can be equally or more intense depending on the nature of the individual case.
- 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
- All
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 34
- Paragraph text
- Domestic bonded labour can be linked to gender-discriminatory cultural practices. Among certain ethnic groups in Ghana and neighbouring countries, for instance, girls as young as 6-10 years old are forced into bonded labour, serving as so-called trokosi or vudusi in the household of priests at local fetish shrines. They are given by their parents to the shrine to pay the shrine for erasing a moral failing or curse attached to the parents. In addition to performing domestic chores and ritual duties at the shrine, a trokosi is usually also expected to work long hours on farmland belonging to the shrine. From puberty, she is expected to endure sexual relations with the fetish priest. Although the Government of Ghana has criminalized the practice, it has not yet been eradicated.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Harmful Practices
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Girls
- Youth
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 98
- Paragraph text
- [Normative action at the international level reflects has long been a reflection of the indolence of many States to provide effective protection against domestic servitude at the national level. The Special Rapporteur therefore welcomes the fact that the ILO finally resolved to adopt a convention on decent standards for domestic work and hopes that recommendations contained in this report will be reflected in the Convention. The Special Rapporteur recommends that:] The Human Rights Council and other appropriate inter-governmental forums should address domestic servitude through appropriate mechanisms. Universal periodic review recommendations should address domestic servitude and related shortcomings in the protection of domestic workers.
- 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
- 2010
Paragraph