A Global Alliance Against Forced Labour - International Labour ...

A DYNAMIC GLOBAL PICTUREin polygamous marriage; 99 people forced to workby religious authorities, including under the trokosisystem in Ghana; 100 and the use of talibé children forbegging in various West African countries. 101214. Several studies of the latter practice in WestAfrica have revealed that, like other traditions involvingchildren in earning their upkeep, this onehas sometimes been manipulated to become exploitativeand abusive. For example, boys aged from ten to15, as well as some young adult men, were reportedin 2003 to have been brought from Burkina Faso toneighbouring Mali to pursue their religious studiesand then to have been dispatched to work full timeon rice farms in the Upper Niger valley: all their earningswere handed over to their teacher. 102 Such casessuggest there is a need for some form of regulationto indicate what forms of money collecting or otherincome-generating activities by students are regardedas acceptable in each national context.Gaps in the understandingof forced labour in Africa215. The above review has covered those forced labourproblems that – to a greater or lesser extent –are documented. Given the focus of the internationalcommunity over the past decade on child labour, it isnot surprising that the forced labour of children hasreceived more attention than that of adults. There remainsignificant gaps in our understanding of forcedlabour. All of this calls for more awareness raising anddiscussion, among governments and also involvingthe social partners, to reflect on the extent to whichnew problems may be arising in practice.216. Such an exercise was held in Yaoundé in late2004, when trade unionists from Burundi, Cameroon,the Central African Republic, Chad, Congo and theDemocratic Republic of the Congo sought to identifythe principal features of contemporary forced labourin this region. 103 Problem areas that surfaced includedslavery and abductions; debt slavery; forced domesticlabour; commercial sexual exploitation; forced overtimeunder threat of dismissal; unpaid compulsorylabour for public servants; and trafficking in persons.A potential area of concern is possible forced labourabuses faced by internal adult migrants within Africa,whether rural–rural, rural–urban or cross-border,working in the informal rural and urban economies.The prevalence of debt bondage, and other abuses associatedwith the heightened vulnerability of womenand men workers who have moved from their homeenvironment, is not known. It is also important to examinein greater depth labour arrangements in commercialagriculture, to explore whether or not systemsof advance payment or other payment systems linkedto subcontracting of the migrant workforce in particulargive rise to forced labour problems. More generally,there is a need for more detailed research onlabour contractual arrangements prevailing in theinformal economy, to confirm whether forced labourand debt bondage problems exist. 10499. A recent study in Niger suggests that marriage is exploited as a way of acquiring control of women’s agricultural labour, with marriagesbeing conducted shortly before the rainy season, when agricultural labour is in most demand, specifically to acquire control over women’slabour (involving, in one case cited, up to eight wives). In some cases, such marriages are brought to a prompt end once the period of peaklabour demand is over. Sékou and Adji, op. cit.100. Among the Ewe people of southeast Ghana, in order to atone for a sin, families have sent a woman or girl to live with and work for thecustodians of shrines, to whom they have to provide sexual and domestic services, usually for life. For more than a decade the Ghanaianauthorities, as well as a number of NGOs supported by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and others, havebeen engaged in efforts to eradicate this practice. In 1998 Ghana adopted the Criminal Code (Amendment) Act (No. 554), making it acrime to subject a person to “ritual or customary servitude”. The new law did not put an end to the practice, however, although significantnumbers of women have been released and given support in recovering and establishing themselves in alternative occupations. According toone estimate, more than 1,000 women and girls have been released so far.101. In many countries boys attending religious schools are required to collect alms from the public in order to fi nance their education oreducational establishment. This practice is reported among Christian communities in the highlands of Ethiopia, as well as in many Muslimcommunities, from Sudan to Senegal. The Muslim students are known as “talibés” in French-speaking West Africa.102. C.O. Diallo: “Trafic d’enfants – Le marabout pris en fl agrant délit”, in L’Essor, 3 July 2003, quoted in M. Coulibaly; A. Diarra: Etude sur letravail forcé au Mali (Bamako, Oct. 2003), PAMODEC/BIT, pp. 49-50.103. Séminaire sur les normes internationales du travail et les procédures constitutionnelles, 29 Nov. – 1 Dec. 2004.104. Preliminary ILO research in Madagascar, for example, indicated that debt bondage and forced labour were prevalent amongst street tradersin urban centres, who are obliged to hand over their identity cards to their suppliers. If they fail to meet repayment schedules for thesupplies provided, they must either provide free labour (for example, as a night guard or domestic servant), or renegotiate the debt, takingfurther “advances” and thereby becoming effectively bonded by ever-increasing outstanding debt burdens. Rickshaw pullers were also foundto be indebted to the owners from whom they lease the rickshaws, and also borrow money for agricultural inputs. Many experience problemswith repayment. Etude sur le travail forcé: cas de Madagascar (unpublished document, Oct. 2004), study commissioned by the ILO.45