Metropolitan Model United Nations Conference XLII International Labour Organization

Forced Labor
The International Labor Organization estimates that there are at least 20.9 million people worldwide in situations of forced labor. Forced labor is any work or services which people are forced to do against their will under the threat of some form of punishment. 1 Forced labor comes in many forms, including slavery, debt bondage, and serfdom. Since before World War II, the ILO has worked to address the issue of forced labor. The Forced Labor Convention of 1930 2 established two criteria for determining whether work meets the definition of forced labor: 1) The person is forced to work or provide service under the menace of penalty, and 2) The work is undertaken involuntarily. Low wages or poor working conditions do not make labor forced, although many involved in forced labor do work in deplorable conditions. Rather, forced labor goes beyond discomfort and is a severe violation of human rights and restricts human freedom. (See Appendix A.) Forced labor is found around the world, and found most frequently in the following industries: Agriculture and fishing Domestic work Construction, mining, quarrying, and brick making Manufacturing, processing, and packaging Prostitutions and sexual exploitation Market trading and illegal activities How big is the problem of forced labor? Three people out of every 1,000 persons worldwide suffer under forced labor. 55% of all forced labor victims are girls or women. 74%, or 15.4 million are adults, older than 18 years of age. Children forced into labor number 5.5 million, or 26% of the total number of workers. 2.2 million work in stateimposed forms of forced labor in prisons, the military, or in rebel armed forces. Forced labor is truly a global problem, and no region of the world is immune. 56% of such workers are in Asia and the Pacific region. 18% are in Africa. 9% are in Latin America and the Caribbean. 7% are in the developed economies (U.S., Canada, Australia, European Union, Japan, and New Zealand.) 7% are in Central, Southeast and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CSEE). 3% of forced laborers are in the Middle East. 3 The form of forced labor may vary by region. Industrialized countries see cases of migrant workers in debt bondage involved in agriculture and other labor-intensive industries such as garment manufacturing and food processing. In the transition economies of eastern

and southeastern Europe, the problem manifests itself among migrant workers involved in agriculture and mining. Workers here are forced to turn over their identity papers to employers, threatened with being turned over to immigration authorities, and forbidden to move about freely. Developing countries face additional problems of internal and crossborder trafficking. Growing numbers of domestic workers, both children and adults, are made to hand over identity papers and find themselves bound to one household with no freedom of movement. Debt bondage continues to be a huge problem for indigenous people in Latin American countries. The ILOs report, A Global Alliance Against Forced Labor divided forced labor situations into three main categories: 4 1) Forced labor imposed by the State includes forced labor exacted by the military, compulsory participation in public works, and forced prison labor. Offending states include China, North Korea and Burma. 2) Forced labor imposed by private agents for the commercial sexual exploitation includes prostitution by both men and women who were forced into prostitution or cannot leave after voluntarily becoming involved. This also includes all children who are forced into commercial sexual activities. 3) Forced labor by private agents for economic exploitation includes bonded labor, forced domestic work, or forced labor in agriculture and remote rural areas. Specific examples of forced labor include the following: Foreigners kidnapped in London in the United Kingdom by gangs and forced into construction work. Forced labor on collective farms in Uzbekistan; children are removed from school for such work. Slave labor camps in North Korea. Families forced to collect firewood and hunt for warlord masters in the Congo. Fishermen in Thailand cannot leave their employment. Forced labor is intricately tied to trafficking. The Trafficking Protocol of 20005 established a basic definition of trafficking. Trafficking, as opposed to smuggling of people who have made choices, refers to the recruitment, transport, transfer, harboring or receipt of a person who does not want to be moved. Simply put, trafficking involves the buying and selling of human beings. Trafficking happens because there is a demand for the sexual services and labor of the victims. As is true for forced labor, almost every country of the world is somehow involved in trafficking to supply the people who are forced into labor. Some countries are the sending countries from which people are trafficked. Eritrea and Ethiopia are two examples of supply nations. Some countries are transit countries. For example, Egypt is a country of transit for trafficking in women from Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa for sexual purposes in Israel. Some countries are receiving countries. Examples of such destination countries are Lebanon and the United States. Lastly, some countries are involved in all three aspects of the trafficking business. India is such an example.

The ILO, the UN, and individual nations have worked to address forced labor issues, but more work needs to be done. The ILOs Forced Labor Convention (1930) calls for governments to suppress the use of forced labor. It has been ratified by over 170 states. The UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights has been ratified by 160 countries and also prohibits the use of forced labor. In July 2013, the ILO and the United Kingdom Department for International Development launched a new initiative to prevent trafficking with South Asia and the Middle East. The Work In Freedom movement, funded by U.K. aid, will focus on trafficking to supply domestic labor and the garment industry through known trafficking routs from Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, to Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, and India. Issues for this committee to consider: Forced Labor and trafficking violate international law. Both must be treated as serious crimes. Yet, many countries have no laws against these crimes, and nations rightly have concerns about national sovereignty. The demand for forced labor must be addressed in order to eliminate the trafficking that supplies the people who are the victims of forced labor. Questions to Consider: What kinds of forced labor exist in your country today? How many people are impacted? Who benefits from forced labor in your country? What is your countrys role(s) in trafficking? How can countries be encouraged to pass legislation to eliminate forced labor and trafficking inside their borders? How can your country work with others to address the cross-border aspects of forced labor and trafficking to supply workers? APPENDIX A

Notes, Sources and Helpful Links: 1. What is forced labor? www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/forced_labour.aspx 2. A Global Alliance Against Forced Labor, ILO, 2005, http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/--declaration/documents/publication/wcms_081882.pdf 3. What is forced labor? 4. A Global Alliance Against Forced Labor 5. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, 2000. International Labour Standards on Forced Labour, ILO, http://www.ilo.org/global/standards/subjects-covered-by-international-labourstandards/forced-labour/lang--en/index.htm Key achievements of the ILOs Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour 2001 2011 http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/--declaration/documents/publication/wcms_203446.pdf Trafficking in Women and Forced Labor and Domestic Work in the Context of the Middle East and Gulf Region, Anti-Slavery International 2006, http://www.antislavery.org/includes/documents/cm_docs/2009/t/traffic_women_forced_ labour_domestic_2006.pdf Forced Labor Convention of the ILO, 1930 Abolition of Forced Labor Convention of the ILO, 1957, www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/ex/en http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/lang--en/index.htm http://www.havocscope.com/number-of-children-working-in-forced-labor-worldwide http://antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/forced_labour.aspx