A/HRC/15/20* master’s children, fetching water, gathering firewood, pounding millet, moving heavy tents and performing other domestic tasks. Besides exploitative living and working conditions and frequent physical and sexual abuse, the specific nature of slavery manifests itself by the fact that the victim and her children are considered to be their master’s property and can be rented out, loaned or given as gifts to others. 29. The Special Rapporteur also notes a 2008 judgment of the Economic Community of West African States Court of Justice ordering the Government of Niger to pay compensation to a former domestic “slave” sold to her “master” at the age of 12 and made to work for almost ten years.8 Although slavery in Niger is criminalized, national courts did not recognize the plaintiff’s right to be free from her “master” and marry another man. 2. Domestic servitude resulting from debt bondage 30. Among the instances leading to domestic servitude is debt bondage, also referred to as bonded labour (see for information A/HRC/12/21). Article 1 (a) of the 1956 Supplementary Convention on Slavery defines debt bondage as “the status or condition arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or of 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 defined”. 31. Bonded labour, which has been historically associated with agricultural production and the landless poor (see A/HRC/12/21), can touch entire families. In addition to the agricultural work performed by men, bondage arrangements sometimes extend to women who are forced to serve in the household of the creditor. In some cases, parents are forced to give away one or more of their children to the creditor who often subjects them to domestic servitude.9 32. The mechanization of agriculture, rural-urban migration and the development of labour-intensive export industries, coupled with the erosion of workers’ rights outside the traditional bonded labour context, have led to the emergence of patterns of “neo-bondage”, whereby destitute people commit themselves to working off loans or wage advances obtained from their employer and cannot default on this debt, not least due to a fear of extrajudicial enforcement. In this context, researchers note an increasing feminization of bonded labour and some of the victims end up in bonded domestic servitude.10 33. “Neo-bondage” may also emerge in the context of migration for domestic work. Migrant domestic workers will often assume a considerable debt towards the employer or the agency organizing her recruitment and transport to cover the cost of the air ticket and recruitment fees. The domestic worker is then expected to work off this debt. In many countries, migrant domestic workers are not able to change employers as the validity of their visa depends on the initial employer’s sponsorship (see section 2f). In addition, they might be blocked from returning to their home country, because employers or recruitment agencies withhold passports or return air tickets. They cannot leave their position before they have worked off their recruitment debt. With salaries being often as low as US$ 100– 300 per month, this means that migrant domestic workers become bonded for long periods to a single employer, making them easily exploitable. 8 9 10 GE.10-15169 Economic Community of West African States, Community Court of Justice, Hadijatou Mani Koraou v. The Republic of Niger, application No. ECW/CCJ/APP/08/08; Judgement No. ECW/CCJ/JUD/06/08 of 27 October 2008. See Anti-Slavery International, “Forced and Bonded Labour in Nepal: Briefing Note” (July 2009). See e.g. Krishna Prasad Upadhyaya, “Poverty, Discrimination and Slavery: The reality of bonded labour in India, Nepal and Pakistan” (Anti-Slavery International, 2008). 7