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

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GLOBAL ACTION TO COMBAT FORCED LABOURon Bonded Labour in November 2003. Attended bystakeholders from government, the social partnersand broader civil society, the event yielded importantpolicy recommendations and a commitment to developan action plan for the elimination of bondedlabour.334. At community level, in both South Asia andAfrica, innovative techniques including street theatreare used to spread awareness about bonded labour,trafficking, indebtedness and related issues. Such approachesare particularly appropriate in remote areaswith largely illiterate populations. In Nepal, a widerange of media, including articles in the press, radioprogrammes in the Nepali, Tharu and Avadhi languages,as well as a video documentary, are beingused to call for the abolition of bonded labour and theworst forms of child labour. A workshop was held forjournalists from the electronic and print media. Notall experiences have been entirely positive, however.For example, a poster-based campaign by the SindhLabour Department in Pakistan met with some localresistance. Printed in Urdu and Sindhi, 100,000posters were displayed prominently in courts, pressclubs, public offices and marketplaces in five districtsof the province. However, many of them were torndown by the public, allegedly under the instructionsof local landowners. Some elected government officials,also with vested interests, proved unwilling tocooperate. This seems to indicate that such activitiesneed to be embedded in broader efforts to informand raise awareness, so as to reach and convince allelements in the community.335. In Latin America, although the ratificationrate of the relevant Conventions is high, generallyonly limited attention has been paid to forced labour,with the notable exception of Brazil. A seriesof initial workshops in Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemalaand Peru (countries with a large indigenous population)in 2002 served to identify a number of hithertounexposed forced labour problems. 18 These includeddebt bondage and appalling working conditions of indigenousmigrants; coercive conditions in privatizedmines; abuse of compulsory military service; and, inone case, the implications of military ownership oflarge enterprises for the application of labour law.336. Brazil, by contrast, has undertaken a highprofileadvocacy campaign against slave labour,launched in Congress in October 2003 (see box 3.3).Coordinated by the ILO, with the support of theGovernment and the National Commission toEradicate Slave Labour (CONATRAE), the campaignhas been developed through voluntary contributionsof over US$7.3 million from communications andpublicity agencies. The campaign material has beendisplayed in the top 20 national airports, reachingalmost 12 million passengers. State-level campaignsto fight slave labour, in Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Paráand Piaui, have since been developed. Media coverageof slave labour issues has increased exponentially.337. The case of Brazil provides a useful illustrationof an integrated project of ILO assistance, involvingseveral complementary components, amongst whichawareness raising has been prominent.338. Awareness raising in industrialized countrieshas helped alert ILO constituents and the public atlarge to the forced labour affecting migrant workers.Publication and dissemination of the findings ofresearch can provide an excellent opportunity tostimulate broader discussion and action on the issue.Workshops to validate national research findings,held in seven European countries in 2003-04, haveinformed participants about the labour dimensionsof trafficking. In the Russian Federation, separatemeetings targeted the employer members of theGlobal Compact, and workers’ organizations representingthe construction industry. Following twoseminars in Japan in September 2003 and October2004, media attention to trafficking in that countryhas grown significantly.339. Television, film and video coverage can be effectivemeans to alert the public to the dangers oftrafficking. In eastern Europe, for example, the video“Bought and sold”, produced by the ILO (IPEC andMIGRANT) and translated into local languages,depicts the trauma of women trafficked to westernEurope. Increasing media appearances by ILO officials– for example, in the four-part BBC WorldService series “Slavery Today”, broadcast in late 2004(to be repeated in 2005), and on the Franco-Germanchannel ARTE in November 2003 – greatly expandthe audiences that are reached with core ILO messageson combating forced labour. Clearly, the inclusionof the elimination of forced labour as one of thefour fundamental principles and rights at work beingactively promoted by ILO DECLARATION’s “Workin Freedom” communications campaign serves toemphasize the important interlinkages between thedifferent rights.340. In Africa, apart from cross-border traffickingin women and children, other contempor -ary manifestations of forced labour have generallyreceived scant attention. Yet there have been someinstances of progress. Initial ILO work in Niger,under the auspices of the project for supporting theapplication of the Declaration (PAMODEC – Projetd’Appui à la Mise en Œuvre de la Déclaration), led toan historic public commitment by the Associationof Traditional Chiefs of Niger (ACTN) to combatforced labour and slavery. Subsequent awarenessraising has included a community radio campaign,dissemination in local languages of promotionalmaterials, and three regional ACTN workshops todiscuss local problems. Regarding trafficking, IPEChas found that, once made aware of the profi le of18. The workshops were organized jointly by the ILO and the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO).73
A GLOBAL ALLIANCE AGAINST FORCED LABOURBox 3.3.Combating slave labour in BrazilThe ILO project in Brazil aims to combat abusive recruitment practices leading to “slave labour”, 1 particularlyin cattle raising and agriculture, and to help strengthen and coordinate action by members of theNational Commission to Eradicate Slave Labour (CONATRAE) and other key partners (such as trade unionsand the private sector) within and outside the Government, at federal, state and municipal levels. It has sixmain elements:● creating a database on slave labour for the Ministry of Labour and Employment, recording regions ofincidence and recruitment, the names of offenders, the economic activities involved, and cases whereworkers fall back into slave labour situations;● launching national and regional campaigns against slave labour;● launching a National Plan to Eradicate Slave Labour, including measures for prosecution of offenders,prevention, and rehabilitation of victims;● capacity building of the partners involved in prosecuting slave labour (mainly the Federal and LabourProsecutions Offi ces, the Ministry of Labour and Employment, the Federal Police and other law enforcementagencies), as well as trade unions and NGOs;● strengthening the Mobile Inspection Group;● pilot programmes for the rehabilitation of slave labourers, mainly through income-generation activities,capacity building and legal assistance.Since its initiation in April 2002, the project has steadily gained momentum and increased its activities. Inthe first year, much attention was given to sensitizing law enforcement agencies, bringing them together in acommon platform against slave labour. In September 2002, a high-profi le event in Brasilia brought togetherfederal and labour judges, federal and labour prosecutors, labour inspectors and federal and highwaypolice. This stimulated the creation of specifi c groups to deal with the problem in the Federal and LabourProsecutions Offi ces, and also the federal council of the Brazilian Bar Association, with which follow-upseminars were held. The President of the Supreme Labour Tribunal responded by creating new mobiletribunals (varas itinerantes) to deal on an immediate basis with the most serious slave labour allegations.Legislative measures included an amendment adopted in December 2002 to ensure the payment of thestate portion of unemployment contributions to workers rescued from slave labour. 2The accession to offi ce of the newly-elected Brazilian Government in early 2003 provided renewed scopefor the project. It worked closely with the Government on drafting the National Plan to Eradicate SlaveLabour, launched with considerable publicity in March 2003. An important next step was to launch theNational Campaign to Eradicate Slave Labour. Since then, there has been a series of initiatives by boththe executive and the legislature to provide for more effective monitoring and more vigorous prosecutionof slave labour offences. In November 2003, a federal law created 269 new labour courts in areas with ahigh incidence of slave labour. 3 The project supported a federal government initiative to issue a “dirty list”of 101 companies associated with the exaction of slave labour, which would henceforth be denied access topublic finance. On a more constructive note, in August 2004 an agreement was signed between major steelcompanies and their workers’ union, under which these companies commit not to buy charcoal from anyenterprise that has subjected its workers to slave labour conditions. The project, at CONATRAE’s request,has also supported the Brazilian Government, through an extensive information campaign, for a proposedconstitutional amendment to allow confi scation of the property of persons responsible for exacting forcedlabour. The achievements of the campaign against slave labour in Brazil are refl ected in the remarkableincrease in workers freed over recent years.1“Slave labour” is the term adopted by the Brazilian Government to refer to forced labour.2Act No. 10,608 of 20 December 2002, to amend Act No. 7,998 of 11 January 1990, regulating the unemploymentinsurance programme.3Act No. 10,770 of 21 November 2003, to provide for the establishment of labour courts in the regions of the labourjustice system, define jurisdictions and make other provisions.recruiters and recruitment mechanisms, communityleaders have proved to be the best whistle-blowerson traffickers. In Ghana, sensitization meetings withtraditional chiefs will facilitate this process. UnderIPEC’s project on combating the trafficking of childrenfor labour exploitation in West and CentralAfrica (LUTRENA), 19 local vigilance committeesagainst child trafficking have been set up in Benin,Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon and Mali.19. Covering Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and Togo.74
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A Global AllianceAgainst Forced Lab
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REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR-GENERALA glo
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ContentsIntroduction . . . . . . .
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Introduction1. Four years ago, the
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PART IUnderstanding and measuringfo
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UNDERSTANDING AND MEASURING FORCED
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A GLOBAL ALLIANCE AGAINST FORCED LA
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