A presentation created during the Youth Exchange Dawn of Modern Slavery: Dusk of Human Rights, financed by Erasmus+ through European Union. More information about the international mobility programs here:
https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/opportunities/opportunities-for-individuals/youth-exchanges
2. Forced labor
- "all work or service which is exacted from any person under the threat of a
penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself
voluntarily." (International Labor Organisation, Forced Labour Convention, 1930
No. 29)
3. Types of forced labor
- Work or service refers to all types of work occurring in any activity, industry or sector including in
the informal economy.
- Menace of any penalty refers to a wide range of penalties used to compel someone to work.
Involuntariness:
- The terms “offered voluntarily” refer to the free and informed consent of a worker to take a job
and his or her freedom to leave at any time. This is not the case for example when an employer or
recruiter makes false promises so that a worker take a job he or she would not otherwise have
accepted.
4. Exceptions
Article 2(2) of Convention No. 29
- Compulsory military service
- Normal civic obligations
- Prison labour (under certain conditions)
- Work in emergency, situations (such as war, calamity or threatened calamity e.g. fire, flood, famine,
earthquake)
- Minor communal services (within the community).
5. Why is it that mostly foreign
workers are to be abused
abroad?
6. The red flags of forced labor
1. VULNERABILITY
What is this?
When an employer or third party, such as a recruitment agent, takes advantage of people in vulnerable situations.
For example, migrant workers who don’t speak the local language or understand local laws and regulations.
Example:
A company in the Middle East has employment contracts containing an opt-out clause for the national weekly
working hours limit. The contracts are in Arabic only, despite a large proportion of the company’s workers being
from countries where Arabic is not a common language. These migrant workers may not be aware that they have
consented to working hours above the national limit.
7. 2. DEBT BONDAGE
What is this?
Workers incur or inherit debts to employers or agents, and are bound to the employer or agent until a debt is
considered paid. Employers may even continue adding costs – such as for food or accommodation – to a worker’s debt.
This can leave a worker with very reduced “take-home” wages, and/or make it impossible for them to clear their debt.
Example:
A migrant worker borrows money from a recruitment agent to secure a job in another country and pay for transport to
it. This sum is added against their name as a debt, and the worker cannot leave their job until it is paid.
8. 3. ISOLATION
What is this?
Workers are in remote locations without the means to leave, or denied contact with the outside world. Isolation can
be geographic, linguistic (workers unable to communicate with those around them), social or cultural.
Example
A palm oil plantation in a remote area can only be reached by boat. Workers are allowed a weekly journey across the
river, but the boat does not always turn up each week – or turns up when most workers are out on the plantation.
9. 4. PHYSICAL & SEXUAL ABUSE
What is this?
Workers are physically or sexually abused. This includes hitting or slapping workers, forcing workers to do
jobs outside of their employment contract, touching workers inappropriately without their consent, and
forcing workers to take drugs or alcohol.
Example: Supervisors at a factory regularly slap workers who are not meeting production quotas.
10. 5. IDENTITY DOCUMENTS IN THE HANDS OF
THE EMPLOYER
What is this?
Employers are in control of workers’ identity documents – such as passports, ID cards and work visas – and hold them
somewhere that workers cannot access freely and independently.
Example:
Workers’ passports are kept in a locked safe at a worksite. Only staff members have a key. Workers must ask one of
these staff members to open the safe if they wish to access their passports, and these staff members are not always
available. Employers often rationalize that they are holding passports or other official documents for safekeeping, but
workers may not feel comfortable requesting access to their documents, or the process to access their documents is
difficult and intimidating.
