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Servile marriage 2012, para. 64
- Paragraph text
- Described below are forms of servile marriage that women and girls experience.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Priorities of the new mandate holder 2014, para. 23
- Paragraph text
- In addition to children in domestic servitude and other forms of slavery, the Special Rapporteur is concerned about the uneven implementation, and in some areas retrogression, of the human rights of women as guaranteed under international law, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Women are disproportionately affected by forced labour. Of the estimated 21 million people in situations of forced labour, 11.4 million (55 per cent) are women and girls.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 76
- Paragraph text
- A UNICEF study on early marriage indicates that girls under the age of 15 years are five times more likely to die during delivery as a result of haemorrhage, sepsis, preeclampsia or eclampsia and obstructed labour than women between the ages of 20 and 24 years.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
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
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
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
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 56
- Paragraph text
- Domestic work also draws in many women and girls with irregular migration status, because it is less visible, usually provides cash payment and, in many cases, a place to stay. Women in such situations usually fear reporting exploitation to the authorities, especially where criminal investigations and the enforcement of labour standards are linked to immigration control. Domestic workers without papers include women who should qualify for asylum or other protected status, but face deportation because States fail to respect their international obligations not to subject to refoulement persons who would face persecution or torture upon their return. Victims of gender-based persecution - e.g. women at risk of "honour" killings - are also prone to becoming undocumented migrants vulnerable to exploitation, because national authorities fail to recognize such persecution or unrealistically assume that the victim has "internal flight alternatives" in her country of origin.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Persons on the move
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
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
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 65
- Paragraph text
- Gender discrimination marks the trajectory into domestic servitude. Families will often give preference to boys to continue their education, while girls are forced to drop out of school to help earn money for the family. Such patterns are reinforced where States fail to respect their obligation under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (art. 28) to provide free and compulsory primary education to girls and boys, while making secondary and higher education available and accessible. In some cultural contexts, there is a widespread belief that domestic work provides better training for becoming a wife and mother than formal education.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Education
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Children
- Families
- Girls
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 74
- Paragraph text
- States have to criminalize all forms of slavery and servitude, investigate and prosecute the perpetrators with due diligence and assign penalties that fit the severity of the crime. Nevertheless, many countries still lack specific criminal provisions on slavery and servitude and therefore have to rely on prosecuting some of the individual acts involved, which often does not capture the severity of the crime. The European Court of Human Rights was confronted with this problem in the landmark case of Siliadin v. France, concerning a Togolese girl who was subjected to domestic servitude. Given that France, at the time, did not have specific criminal provisions on slavery and servitude that would have afforded the victim specific and effective protection, the Court found a violation of the right not to be subjected to servitude. Furthermore, States often fail to prosecute crimes accompanying domestic servitude, such as forced confinement or assault.
- 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
- Girls
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
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
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Child slavery in the artisanal mining and quarrying sector 2011, para. 52
- Paragraph text
- Children working in the mines and quarries are vulnerable to physical, sexual, moral and social harm. Artisanal mining and quarrying is inherently informal and illegal -as either it costs too much to get the legal permit to mine or there is no need to get a permit as the law is not enforced. These "frontier communities" are riddled with violence, crime, trafficking in young girls and women for sexual exploitation, prostitution, drug and alcohol use (ibid.). There have been reports that children are given drugs so that they are able to fearlessly extract minerals underground or underwater. Children also take drugs and alcohol in the belief that it makes them stronger and as a result of peer pressure. The drug abuse (particularly amphetamines and marijuana) and alcohol (commercial and/or local brew) destroy their health and keep them in the vicious circle of poverty. Children who arrive alone to work in this sector are even more vulnerable to abuses (see A/HRC/18/30/Add.2).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Environment
- Poverty
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Women
- Youth
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Child slavery in the artisanal mining and quarrying sector 2011, para. 69
- Paragraph text
- Both boys and girls are found working in artisanal mining and quarrying, but, as they grow up, they are attributed different tasks.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Girls
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Child slavery in the artisanal mining and quarrying sector 2011, para. 71
- Paragraph text
- The overall majority of children who work in artisanal mining and quarrying are boys. However, the number of boys and girls working in mines varies from country to country. In countries like Philippines and the United Republic of Tanzania, the majority of children working in the mines are boys. Furthermore, in countries like the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, as a result of cultural beliefs, girls are normally not allowed to enter mines or work outside the mines processing the ore and sifting the mineral from the slag (see E/C.12/MDG/CO/2). However, in Mongolia, the majority of children who work under the age of 13 are girls.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Children
- Girls
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Child slavery in the artisanal mining and quarrying sector 2011, para. 73
- Paragraph text
- Girls, especially unaccompanied girls, working in and around the mines and quarries are vulnerable to rape and sexual exploitation. Sexual exploitation can start from the age of 9 but many of the girls involved are aged between 13 and 17 years. In some mining communities like those in Burkina Faso and Niger, it is believed that male child miners will have greater luck in the mining pits if they have sexual intercourse with a virgin or have unprotected sexual intercourse and do not wash before going underground (see E/C.12/MDG/CO/2). Child prostitution also occurs in the mining communities. For example, in Ghana, girls as young as 12 living in gold-mining communities are found in prostitution (ibid.). A United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) study on sexual exploitation of children around mines and quarries found four main types of exploitation: prostitution on a regular basis, occasional prostitution, companionship or temporary unions, and forced prostitution.
- 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
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 10
- Paragraph text
- In its resolution 66/140, the General Assembly reiterated its call for an end to harmful traditional or customary practices, such as early and forced marriage, and called upon States to take appropriate measures to address the root factors of child and forced marriages, including by undertaking educational activities to raise awareness regarding the negative aspects of such practices. It urged all States to enact and strictly enforce laws to ensure that marriage was entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses, and, in addition, to enact and strictly enforce laws concerning the minimum legal age of consent and the minimum age for marriage and raise the minimum age for marriage where necessary, and to develop and implement comprehensive policies, plans of action and programmes for the survival, protection, development and advancement of the girl child in order to promote and protect the full enjoyment of her human rights and to ensure equal opportunities for girls, including by making such plans an integral part of her total development process.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Education
- Harmful Practices
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- The General Assembly also urged States to ensure that efforts to enact and implement legislation to end child and forced marriages engaged all stakeholders and agents of change and to ensure that the information on the legislation against the practice was well known and generated social support for the enforcement of such laws and legislation. States were urged to support community workshops and discussion sessions to enable communities to collectively explore ways to prevent and address child and forced marriages, provide information through stakeholders credible to the community, such as medical personnel and local, community and religious leaders, regarding the harm associated with those marriages, give greater voice to girls and ensure consistence of message throughout the entire community, and encourage the much-needed strong engagement of men and boys.
- 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
- Boys
- Children
- Girls
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 12
- Paragraph text
- The General Assembly called upon States to support and implement, including with dedicated resources, multisectoral policies and programmes that ended the practice of child and forced marriages and to ensure the provision of viable alternatives and institutional support, especially educational opportunities for girls, with an emphasis on keeping girls in school through post-primary education, including those who were already married or pregnant, ensuring physical access to education, including by establishing safe residential facilities, increasing financial incentives to families, promoting the empowerment of girls, improving educational quality and ensuring safe and hygienic conditions in schools.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Education
- Equality & Inclusion
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Girls
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 15
- Paragraph text
- The violations that occur within servile marriage cannot be viewed only as acts of violence against women and girls because, although the overwhelming majority of those in servile marriage are girls and women, boys and men are also victims. Owing to gender prejudices, it is often easier for boys and men to leave forced marriages, live as divorcees, remarry and regain control of their lives, in particular because they are usually more educated and can be financially independent. Girls and women are more vulnerable and more likely to be sexually and physically abused. The Special Rapporteur focuses herein on girls and women in servile marriage for those reasons and also because, whether by design, error or omission, there is scant information available about the impact of servile marriage on boys and men.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Girls
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 16
- Paragraph text
- From an early age, girls are brought up and viewed as commodities to be used to solidify family links and preserve honour, in addition to financial assets that can improve the family's economic status. Discriminatory attitudes within the family are reinforced in the community and throughout the girl's life. Complicity by other women in the family and the community strengthens the concept of women as property and embeds the perception that violence against female family members is to be tolerated and remedied privately within the family environment. From the beginning of the marriage, a spouse is treated not as an individual but as a commodity, given that his or her consent to the marriage is not required.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Harmful Practices
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- Other slavery-like practices take place during servile marriage as the spouse usually ends up in domestic servitude (see A/HRC/15/20) and sexual slavery (whereby she is sexually exploited through the use or threat of force). Although commonly understood to take place during times of conflict, sexual slavery can occur at any time and violates the International Bill of Human Rights. National courts have acknowledged this concept. For example, in United States of America v. Sanga, a man forced a woman to work as a domestic maid for more than two years and to have sex with him. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously held that she was a virtual slave, contrary to the provision of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, under which slavery and involuntary servitude were prohibited. Girls and women in servile marriage have no choice but to perform the tasks expected of them, such as domestic chores, shop or farm work and engaging in sexual intercourse with their husbands. If they refuse to do so, or if their performance is unsatisfactory, they face physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- It is important to note the distinction between servile marriage and arranged marriage. The Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery was established by the Economic and Social Council in its decision 16 (LVI) to monitor the existence of slavery and the slave trade in all their practices and manifestations, including slavery-like practices such as servile marriage. The Working Group believed that it was important to highlight the distinction between forced marriage and arranged marriage. Arranged marriages, which exist in many parts of the world, are based on the consent of both parties, whereas forced marriages do not involve the consent of the parties or, at any rate, both of the parties. Any duress in a marriage is a violation of internationally recognized human rights standards and cannot be justified on religious or cultural grounds. The Working Group asserted that the perpetuation of forced and early marriages was a result of gender inequality and lack of both a culture of education for girls and of self-esteem.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 21
- Paragraph text
- Studies have shown that an overwhelming majority of women in servile marriage were forced to be girl brides. According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Niger has the highest occurrence of early marriage, followed by Chad, Mali, Bangladesh, Guinea, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Nepal, Malawi and Ethiopia. Girls and women experience the same violations within a servile marriage and, unless otherwise stated, the violations discussed herein apply to both girls and women. Girls are, however, much more vulnerable to abuse given their lack of physical and emotional maturity.
- 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
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 31
- Paragraph text
- Article 21 (2) of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child states that child marriage and the betrothal of girls and boys are to be prohibited and effective action, including legislation, is to be taken to specify the minimum age of marriage to be 18 years. Article 6 of the 2003 Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa states that no marriage is to take place without the free and full consent of both parties, and requires States to enact appropriate national legislative measures to guarantee that the minimum age of marriage for women is to be 18 years.
- 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
- Harmful Practices
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Children
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 41
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur on the human rights aspects of the victims of trafficking in persons, especially in women and children, concluded that there was a clear recognition in United Nations and regional agreements, as well as in national legislation, that many women and girls around the world lived under conditions where, owing to harmful patriarchal, traditional, customary and/or religious practices, they could not fully exercise their human rights to marry or refuse marriage; to full sexual autonomy; to refuse childbearing; to leave partners, including abusive partners, while retaining custody of their children, and to do so safely and without legal, economic, social, political and cultural repercussions (A/HRC/4/23, para. 38).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- Gender inequality also contributes to servile marriage through its impact on formal legal systems. Although a woman's right to choose if, when and whom to marry is recognized in international human rights law, and although the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Committee on the Rights of the Child and other treaty bodies state that the minimum age of marriage should be 18 years, several countries with high rates of early marriage also have unequal laws of consent for boys and girls. Such laws reinforce and legalize the idea that marriage is suitable for girls earlier than for boys. Patriarchal laws and practices give women and girls less negotiating power around marriage and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Harmful Practices
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Children
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
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 added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 46
- Paragraph text
- Family status depends on honour. In patriarchal and patrilineal societies, maintaining the honour of the family is a woman's responsibility. The concept of women as commodities and not as human beings endowed with dignity and rights equal to those of men is deeply embedded in these societies. Women are seen as the property of men and must be obedient and passive, rather than assertive and active. Any assertive behaviour is considered to be an element that would result in an imbalance of power relations within the parameters of the family unit (E/CN.4/2002/83, para. 27). UNICEF reports that in some countries, early marriages are regarded by families as a means of protecting girls from premarital sex that would undermine their honour and that of their families.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Harmful Practices
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Girls
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- There are several practices in which girls are forced into marriage under the guise of religious rites. For example, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has noted the existence in India of devadasi, whereby a girl, usually a Dalit, is forced to marry a deity and forced to have sex with members of the temple (CERD/C/IND/CO/19, para. 18). The Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination have addressed the deuki system in Nepal, under which girls may be offered to deities by their families or by wealthy people who buy girls from their parents to be granted wishes or heavenly favours. The girl is then called a deuki and engages in prostitution (CRC/C/15/Add.261, para. 67, and CEDAW/C/NPL/CO/4-5, para. 17).
- 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
- Girls
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 62
- Paragraph text
- Other forms of ritual slavery in which a girl is given to a shrine and married to the gods are practised in parts of West Africa. The girl is enslaved to atone for the real or alleged sins of a male relative. There is a belief that gods often punish a person's sin by causing the deaths of family members until the sin is pardoned. Until the early eighteenth century, livestock or other gifts were given to the priests in atonement. As girls could be used as domestic help and as sexual partners, priests began taking young virgins as reparation instead. A girl is expected to serve a priest for a certain period, depending upon the severity of the crime and the policy of the shrine. The girl's family can redeem her after that period, but the priest demands a high price. If the priest dies, the girl becomes the property of his successor. If the girl dies without her family redeeming her, her family is obligated to replace her with another virgin, meaning that the cycle can continue for generations. Enslaved girls and women are forced to live in inhumane conditions. They are expected to work in the fields and the local market and also provide sexual services to the priests. They are beaten into submission if they resist (E/CN.4/2002/83, para. 42).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 63
- Paragraph text
- As with domestic violence, it is difficult to obtain accurate figures of the numbers of girls and women in servile marriage. Statistics for early marriage, however, can be used as an indication. According to UNICEF, adolescent marriages (where one or both spouses are below the age of 19 years) commonly occur in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In those regions, most marriages take place between the ages of 15 and 18 years. UNICEF suggests that early marriages are often considered to be a way to protect girls, and even sometimes boys, from sexual predation, promiscuity and social ostracism. In some communities, parents perceive girls as wealth.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Adolescents
- Boys
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph