Trafficking in human beings: human rights and ... - unesdoc - Unesco

measures include laws or regulations which provide for penalties, including prohibition
of those private employment agencies which engage in fraudulent practices and abuses. 86
Respecting labour rights is an often, if not overlooked at least diminished, part of fi ghting
traffi cking. But it is a highly important tool and labour rights, and a promotion of
solidarity through unions including with non-nationals, regular or not, will help promote
better working conditions for all, less exploitation (and thus less traffi cking cases too).
What must be underlined is that nobody in the working forces gains from having a
certain group left outside the protection of labour laws since it will only create unhealthy
competition and lower wages also for nationals in regular employment.
Slavery and servitude
The 1957 Supplementary Convention on the Elimination of Slavery, Slave Trade, and
Institutions and Practice Similar to Slavery defi nes Slavery as “the status or condition
of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the rights of ownership
are exercised” (repeating the defi nition of Art. 1.1 of the anti slavery Convention from
1926).
It should be underlined that slavery according to this defi nition can occur regardless of
whether the victim receives remuneration. This is particularly relevant when traffi ckers try
to avoid prosecution paying their victims thus trying to render the offence less evident.
According to Art 1 of the Supplementary Convention on Slavery States Parties have to
adopt all the measures to abolish 1) debt bondage that is to say the status or condition
arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or those of a person under his
control as security for a debt if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not
applied towards the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are
not respectively limited and defi ned; 2) Serfdom, that is to say, the condition or status of
a tenant who is by law, custom or agreement bound to live and labour on land belonging
to another person and to render some determinate service to such other person, whether
for reward or not, and is not free to change her/his status.
Both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, Art. 4, and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, art. 8(2) state that no person shall be
held in servitude, but neither of them defi nes the term. Servitude has been interpreted
to be broader than slavery. An early draft of the Protocol (7th revised draft) defi ned
servitude in the context of traffi cking as: “The condition of a person who is unlawfully
compelled or coerced by another to render any service to the same person or to others and
who has no reasonable alternative but to perform the service, and shall include domestic
service and debt-bondage.” The Travaux Préparatoires to the ICCPR Art. 8 on slavery
86 Ibid. p. 8. See below for State responsibility in protecting from abuse by individuals in a human rights
context.
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