Article 2 of Convention 29 (1930) defines forced labour as all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty –including non-payment of wages, dismissal and concrete or threatened violence- and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.
Thus, the notion of forced labour includes two distinctive elements: the menace of a penalty, and the fact that it is involuntary. Forced labour is a serious human rights violation and restricts a person’s freedom
Convention 29 provides for certain exceptions: compulsory military service, civic duties, prison labour after a conviction in a court of law (provided that the said work or service is carried out under the supervision and control of a public authority and that the said person is not hired to or placed at the disposal of private individuals, companies or associations), in case of force majeure, or for minor communal services of a kind which, being performed by the members of the community are in the direct interest of the said community.
The Convention establishes that illegal exaction of forced or compulsory labour shall be punishable as a penal offence, and it shall be an obligation on any Member ratifying this Convention to ensure that the penalties imposed by law are really adequate and are strictly enforced.
Additionally, Convention 105 (1957) on the abolition of forced labour, prohibits forced or compulsory labour as a means of political coercion or education or as a punishment for holding or expressing political views or views ideologically opposed to the established political, social or economic system; as a method of mobilising and using labour for purposes of economic development; as a means of labour discipline; as a punishment for having participated in strikes; and as a means of racial, social, national or religious discrimination.
Likewise, forced or compulsory labour is considered one of the worst forms of child labour in Convention 182.
COMMITMENTS UNDERTAKEN
It should be mentioned that the ILO Conventions that define forced labour – Convention 29 of 1930 – and its abolition – and Convention 105 of 1957, are part of the so-called eight Fundamental Conventions that have been adopted by all the countries of the region.
In 2003, the so-called Palermo Protocol that supplements the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime became effective. This Protocol demands participating states to criminally punish human trafficking for labour or sexual exploitation.
In June 2014, the ILO adopted a binding Protocol on forced labour supplemented by Recommendation 203, with a view to include measures on prevention, protection and access to remedies, as well as to boost efforts to eliminate contemporary forms of slavery.
In the IV Global Conference, forced labour appears under the framework of Alliance 8.7 (Target 8.7 of the SDG), a comprehensive and participative international coalition led by the ILO, aiming to assist all UN Member States in their efforts to expedite and enhance actions to eradicate forced labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and all forms of child labour. It proposes 2025 as the deadline to put an end to all forms of child labour, and eradicate forced labour, trafficking and slavery.
In 2014, the Protocol to the Forced Labour Convention, and the Recommendation on supplementary measures for the effective suppression of forced labour were passed complementing the Conventions, and provide victims of forced labour protection and access to remedies and justice, and promote national policies and action plans, in permanent consultation with relevant social partners. This approach follows the UN guiding principles on Business and Human Rights.
In 2015, the 50forfreedom campaign was launched, with the support of the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Organisation of Employers. The goal of the Campaign is for 50 countries to ratify the ILO Forced Labour Protocol by 2018. To date, only two countries from the region have done so: Argentina and Panama.
Among other relevant milestones that relate to forced and child labour, the following should be mentioned: the adoption of ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (1998); the launch of the Global Compact (1999); the adoption of the Millennium Goals (2000); the adoption of a Decent Work agenda for the Hemisphere 2006-15; the approval of the new Sustainable Development Goals by 2030; and Accountability on the goals of the Decent Work agenda for the Hemisphere.
The main causes of forced labour are: slavery, kidnapping, physical confinement, induced indebtedness, deception about working conditions, and threats of violence, inter alia. The evidence of these violations includes restrictions on workers’ freedom of movement, violent threats, threaten with deportation, withholding wages and payments by recruitment agencies, payment of wages in advance to subsequently pressure workers.
The evolution of international commitments that arise in successive global crises (the Depression in 1930, the post-war period, and during the cold war) are now part of the comprehensive protection of human rights with a perspective on prevention, protection and access to remedies that includes responsibilities for all the social partners involved.
The current forms of forced labour present new variants, but also XIX century and colonial forms of slavery still exist. Precisely, the links between forced labour and child labour appear under such circumstances. The strongest efforts should focus on the interrelations between forced labour and the risk of child labour.
For instance, when servitude or debt bondage exists, both of them being specific forms of forced labour, families oftentimes get involved.
Other interrelations may occur when migrant workers are enslaved, when forced labour is imposed on indigenous communities, human trafficking and other situations where children are doubly victimised through the worst forms of child labour.
The statistics show that 1.8 million people in the region are victims of forced labour and according to global figures about 30% of them are children.
It should be mentioned that those responsible for commercial sexual exploitation, domestic work in forced situations, labour exploitation in activities related to agriculture, construction, mining, some manufactures and service sectors engage in practices outside the law and the respect for essential human rights.
The state plays a fundamental role in legislating, controlling, prosecuting and punishing those responsible for such practices, while employers’ organizations may actively contribute by identifying, preventing, and rendering them visible, since such practices are unrelated to the private sector’s mission as agents that promote sustainable human development and economic growth.
Some of the persistent challenges in the link between forced and child labour are seen in the vulnerability of the prospective victims from the most marginal sectors of society -boys, girls and adolescents of aboriginal communities or living in marginalisation and social deprivation; girls and adolescent women confined to domestic work, and migrant workers. Also the exposure to risk of accidents, lesions and disease, and multiple forms of violence should be added to the above.
The role of the social and cultural environment is another common element, seen in the LAC region, fundamentally in the agricultural sector -where child labour and work in quasi-slavery situations are natural; in the various forms of social marginalisation and structural poverty that drive informality and give rise to illegal productive and marketing systems, of goods and services, where child labour is borderline with forced labour.
But restricting the issue merely to the poverty levels of the households, the economic and political crises of the region and its inequality patterns, blurs the road to possible solutions that some countries have already approached through national plans to eradicate forced labour.
POSITION OF THE EMPLOYERS’ SECTOR
Forced labour is an abhorrent practice and a serious human rights violation. The employers’ sector supports the abolition and elimination of forced labour in all its forms, including human trafficking, as early as possible -because of the obvious ethical reasons that the victims of forced labour lose their freedom and dignity and are subjected to dangerous and unacceptable working conditions, besides the fact that the sustained suppression of forced or compulsory labour also contributes to fair competition.
• The framework required for the public-private initiatives arising in the different countries of the region to prosper, last, expand and interrelate in a comprehensive social protection network is one where institutional quality is warranted.
• Institutional quality involves: separation of powers, the rule of law, independent justice, freedom of speech, access to information and knowledge, freedom of association, and the institutionalization of second generation rights, among other basic principles of participative democracy.
• It is precisely there, in the improvement of institutional quality, and particularly in decentralising provincial, state, and municipal jurisdictions, where employers’ organizations -through their branches and second degree sectoral organizations- play a role towards an effective contribution to eradicate forced labour and the worst forms of child labour.
• It is known that in most countries of the region a large part of forced labour disappears in the ramifications of informal economy, making it difficult to find institutional mechanisms to create potential links to certain degrees of formality.
• We may infer that in certain decentralized levels and in places farther away from the control mechanisms of some value chains, certain illegal situations may exist that result from archaic systems that accumulate power and where corruption is allowed to exist.
• The employers’ sector may make a difference in building citizenship so that its own members create decent employment.
• This may be done by actively participating in streamlining the state at all levels, permanently expanding the transparency and traceability of its activities, and in exposing exploitation and criminality that arise from unscrupulous individuals or organizations, which by no means are part of the entrepreneurial institutional mesh, and establishing a difference with them.
• Strong efforts are needed to sensitise the highest levels of employers’ leadership in the countries of the region, introducing a generational shift that includes the visions of young leaders and business women.
• Creating awareness, self-assessing systems and processes, auditing risk management and life-long training are essential elements in companies. Employers’ organizations may contribute by disseminating and promoting those tools.
• Likewise, growing interaction with the civil society is required, especially with the organisations tasked with improving the institutional quality of Justice and other public institutions; and the organizations devoting to consolidate civic power in order to overcome any traces of political and social feudalism and/or nepotism in the communities where employers are inserted.
• This effort to create awareness implies recognising that systems and processes should be carefully self-assessed, and the supply chain should be trained and sensitised.
• Employers’ organisations are offered a huge opportunity to promote through the affiliated business associations a comprehensive review of the links with the state at all levels to attain the highest institutional cooperation in the efforts to control, monitor and enforce labour legislation.
• The sector may cooperate in attracting the active participation of its members in the calls by the state agencies to improve fiscal schemes and formalize all productive and service activities where a link with the formal sectors can be established.
• Also, the employers’ sector should engage in drafting standards and regulations on all cross-cutting topics that impact on the processes to enhance the eradication of forced labour and the worst forms of child labour
• Specific legislation against human trafficking and sexual exploitation is essential, as the one related to gender issues and the rights of minorities, and those that strengthen passive employment policies and guarantee higher education, among others.
