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Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- In the shadow of global domestic work industry, large numbers of people - in the majority, women and girls - find their dignity denied. They suffer invisibly in domestic servitude, contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (art. 4) and human rights treaty law.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date modified
- Sep 21, 2020
Paragraph
Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 16
- Paragraph text
- In traditional forms of debt bondage in South Asia, patronage assumes an important role in the employer-employee relationship, in that the labour and the life of the debtor become collateral for the debt accrued. In some cases, such patronage perpetuates the cycle of debt from one generation to the next. However, this generational debt bondage has decreased over the years and has been replaced by a more individualized temporary and/or seasonal form of bondage that is exclusively economic and lacks the dimension of patronage. This form of debt bondage, also known as "neo-bondage", is considered to involve the seasonal movement of migrant workers within and between countries. Such workers are recruited by intermediaries who usually demand the payment of an advance and the settlement of wages at the end of the contract in exchange for their intermediation. Neo-bondage is similar to traditional forms of bondage, in the sense that the men, women and children vulnerable to such practices mainly belong to marginalized communities.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Men
- Persons on the move
- Women
- Year
- 2016
- Date modified
- Sep 21, 2020
Paragraph
Challenges and lessons in combating contemporary forms of slavery 2013, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- In September 2008, the Government of Nepal officially liberated all Haliyas and pardoned their debts to landowners. However, in 2010, the Asia Human Rights Commission reported that most Haliyas were still working for their landlords, despite formal liberation. It is very difficult for former Haliyas to integrate into the labour force as they have little to no education or technical skills and 97 per cent do not own land. Approximately 150,000 people were estimated to be affected by the Haliya system in 2010. All Haliyas are male because females are not allowed to plough and cannot get loans to own land of their own. However, women still assist their husbands' landlords by collecting food for the animals or carrying manure to the farms. Children of Haliyas are often involved in the work as cattle herders, and therefore miss out on educational opportunities.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Women
- Year
- 2013
- Date modified
- Sep 21, 2020
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 67
- Paragraph text
- In many cultural contexts, women remain dependent on the social protection of their family. This poses an obvious problem for live-in domestic workers who do not have family close to them. Leaving the house is not an option as women living on their own are looked down upon and viewed with suspicion.
- 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
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 50
- Paragraph text
- It is important to note that the payment of a dowry or bride price does not mean that a woman ends up in a servile marriage. In this context, it is the non-consensual nature of the marriage that is the abuse, not the payment. In some countries, however, a bride price does in fact translate into men feeling that they own their wives.
- 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
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 38
- Paragraph text
- The persistence of such harmful practices recently prompted the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Committee on the Rights of the Child to work on their first joint general comment on harmful traditional practices, which is likely to be finalized in 2013.
- 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
- Children
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 26
- Paragraph text
- Article 23 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides for the right of men and women of a marriageable age to marry and to found a family. Article 23 (3) provides that no marriage is to be entered into without the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
- 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
- Families
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 53
- Paragraph text
- Migration provides an avenue for women from developing countries to find employment abroad and sustain their families. However, a sizable minority of women who emigrate in search of domestic work ends up in domestic servitude.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Manifestations and causes of domestic servitude 2010, para. 91
- Paragraph text
- The work at the expert and regional levels has only led to limited recognition of the problems by intergovernmental United Nations bodies with a human rights or human rights-related mandate. The Commission on the Status of Women has called on member States to develop measures to prevent the labour and economic exploitation and sexual abuse of girls employed as domestic workers and ensure that they have access to education and vocational training, health services, food, shelter and recreation. The Programme of Action of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance urges States to pay special attention to protecting people engaged in domestic work (contained in A/CONF.189/12, para. 67). As part of the universal periodic review, a number of States have made recommendations to their peers to improve the protection of domestic workers. Such references to a serious, widespread and global human rights concern are far and between. There is nothing similar to the General Assembly's Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (resolution 48/104), which opened another socially constructed "private sphere" filled with human rights violations to the persistent scrutiny of the international community.
- 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
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 56
- Paragraph text
- Cultural relativism is often given as an excuse for slavery-like violations such as servile marriage and sexual slavery committed against women and girls. Societies that permit servile marriage are based on an overwhelming fear of female sexuality and culturally believe that it should be curtailed and regulated.
- 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
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 69
- Paragraph text
- Paper marriages are those in which the marriages take place officially, often for the woman to obtain a residency permit, but the man and woman do not live together subsequently as husband and wife. The wife is often made to earn money for a third person through income-generating activities such as 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
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 53
- Paragraph text
- The practice of debt bondage is prevalent worldwide in numerous sectors of the economy and particularly affects people belonging to minority groups, including women, children, indigenous people, people of "low" caste and migrant workers. Poverty, the lack of economic alternatives, illiteracy and the discrimination that people from minority groups suffer leave them with no other option than to take a loan or advance from employers or recruiters to meet basic needs, in exchange for their work or the work of their families. People in debt bondage end up working for no wages or wages below the minimum in order to repay the debts contracted or advances received, even though the value of the work they carry out exceeds the amount of their debts. Furthermore, bonded labourers are often subjected to different forms of abuse, including long working hours, physical and psychological abuse, and violence. Debt bondage is prevalent in many countries, due to a failure by many Governments to implement effective legislation on debt bondage, including deficiencies in the areas of identification, release, rehabilitation, and the prosecution of offenders, and due to a lack of data on the prevalence of debt bondage, weak rule of law, social exclusion and discrimination.
- 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
- Children
- Ethnic minorities
- Persons on the move
- Women
- Year
- 2016
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 57
- Paragraph text
- In Sindh, a province of Pakistan, the custom of swara is practised, by which women are used as commodities to settle disputes between clans and tribes. They are either forced to marry the men from the receiving tribe or used by them as sex slaves. This form of servile marriage continues to occur even in the face of legislation prohibiting this practice and the upholding of that legislation by the Supreme Court of Pakistan (see EGM/GPLHP/2009/EP.14).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 19
- Paragraph text
- Reaffirming forced and early marriages as slavery-like practices is important as it provides an understanding of the violations that victims endure and the kind of interventions required to prevent, monitor and prosecute servile marriage. Victim protection programmes can also be specifically tailored better to support victims of servile marriage. It moves the discussion from being about the rights of women and girls to being about abolishing slavery within communities.
- 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
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 37
- Paragraph text
- In its general recommendation No. 21, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women considers that the minimum age for marriage should be 18 years for both men and women. This age limit, which is in line with the definition of the child provided in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is also reflected in article 21 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.
- 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
- Children
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 67
- Paragraph text
- The sale of wives also manifests itself in the form of mail-order marriages and paper marriages. In the case of mail-order marriages, women from developing countries in East and South Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America advertise themselves in newspapers, magazines and on the Internet for marriage outside their countries of origin, usually to men in developed countries. In many instances, the women are economically vulnerable and advertise themselves in the hope of improving their economic situation.
- 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
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- Conflict and post-conflict situations have also contributed to an increase in servile marriage, given that girls and women recruited or abducted by armed groups have been forced to marry combatants. Armed groups such as the Lord's Resistance Army have been found to force girls into servile marriage in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan (see S/2012/365).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 43
- Paragraph text
- The leading cause of servile marriage is gender inequality, where girls and women are perceived, because of cultural or religious beliefs, to be commodities unable to make proper decisions about who and when to marry. Girls and women are forced to become brides because it is easier to control them and, in the case of girls, their virginity can be guaranteed and they have longer reproductive periods in which to produce more children.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 29
- Paragraph text
- Under article 5 of Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, States parties are to take all appropriate measures to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 22
- Paragraph text
- The Supplementary Slavery Convention prohibits any institution or practice whereby 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; 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 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)
- Economic Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Challenges and lessons in combating contemporary forms of slavery 2013, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- Servile marriages are still practised today; for example, in Papua New Guinea. According to a 2012 report by The Projection Project, "women are victims of forced, fraudulent, servile, fraudulently brokered, and temporary marriages. Children may also become victims of exploitative marriage".
- 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
- Children
- Women
- Year
- 2013
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Child slavery in the artisanal mining and quarrying sector 2011, para. 72
- Paragraph text
- In addition to working in artisanal mining and quarrying, girls also perform domestic household tasks which involve cooking, taking care of siblings, cleaning supplying tools and food to other miners, carrying water and washing clothes. While performing these additional duties, girls are exposed to chemically contaminated water, food and soil. Women and girls are also found around the mines selling food, water and tools.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Environment
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2011
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 33
- Paragraph text
- The Court noted that the crime of forced marriage was not exclusively, or predominantly, sexual and as such was not fully encompassed by the crime of sexual slavery. The women who testified in the case described the forced marriages as having encompassed a series of violations, including abduction, forced labour, deprivations of liberty, corporal punishment, assault and sexual violence.
- 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
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 79
- Paragraph text
- In countries with a high incidence of HIV/AIDS, some adult men prefer to marry girls as their virginity and HIV-negative status is assured. Early marriage to older, more sexually experienced men is, however, no guarantee that a girl will not be infected with HIV. Studies in Kenya and Zambia show that married girls are more likely to be HIV-positive than their sexually active unmarried counterparts.
- 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
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 58
- Paragraph text
- South Africa has given individuals and couples the right to choose the law that should govern their marriage, enabling them to opt out of traditional systems (that they may feel are oppressive or discriminatory) in favour of a law based on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Such an approach should be further explored to ensure that all laws are brought into conformity with international standards (E/CN.4/2002/83, para. 9).
- 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
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 73
- Paragraph text
- Women and girls in servile marriage are required to perform all domestic household tasks and, in some cases, to work outside the home in shops or on farms and to have sex with their husbands. If they do not perform their duties adequately, they face physical and psychological abuse from their husbands or their husbands' families. In many such cases, the girl or woman is also a victim of marital rape.
- 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 modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 83
- Paragraph text
- World Health Organization research also shows that women and girls with low levels of education are at a greater risk of violence than better educated and older women. The higher the levels of schooling for girls, the less they are at risk of servile marriage. In the United Republic of Tanzania, women who attend secondary school are 92 per cent less likely to be married before the age of 18 years than women who attend only primary school.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Education
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Older persons
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 70
- Paragraph text
- In societies in which women are considered vulnerable because they have no male protectors, the levirate, a custom by which a man may be obliged to marry his brother's widow, can be used to expose a widow to mental, physical and sexual abuse in the name of tradition. Most recently, the practice has been highlighted by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women as an issue to be addressed in the Congo (CEDAW/C/COG/CO/6, para. 15).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Harmful Practices
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 40
- Paragraph text
- According to the Special Rapporteur on traditional practices affecting the health of women and the girl child, the practice of forced marriage deserved the close scrutiny of the international community, as it would not be eradicated until women were considered full and equal participants in the social, economic, cultural and political life of their communities (E/CN.4/Sub.2/2005/36, para. 82).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Health
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 78
- Paragraph text
- According to Save the Children in the 2004 edition of its annual publication, State of the World's Mothers, once born, children of girl brides are twice as likely to die before the age of 1 year as the children of a woman in her twenties. If they survive, the children are more likely than those born to older mothers to have poorer health care and inadequate nutrition as a result of the mother's poor feeding behaviour.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Older persons
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date modified
- Feb 14, 2020
Paragraph