A/HRC/4/23 page 12 D. Forced marriage as a reason for or as a result of trafficking in persons 31. Forced marriage has, in fact, been recognized as a form of human trafficking. Forced marriage can be used as a method of recruitment for the purpose of trafficking in persons,9 and may be a result of trafficking in persons. 32. At a regional level, for example, article 1 (5) of the 2002 SAARC Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution states that “‘[p]ersons subjected to trafficking’ means women and children victimized or forced into prostitution by the traffickers by deception, threat, coercion, kidnapping, sale, fraudulent marriage, child marriage, or any other unlawful means”. 33. The United Nations Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery recognized forced marriage as a form of contemporary slavery, trafficking and sexual exploitation (see E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/31). In addition, article 1 of the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery of 1956 states that States parties shall abolish or abandon: “… “(c) Any institution or practice whereby: (i) A woman, without the right to refuse, is promised or given in marriage on payment of a consideration in money or in kind to her parents, guardian, family or any other person or group; or (ii) The husband of a woman, his family, or his clan, has the right to transfer her to another person for value received or otherwise; or (iii) A woman on the death of her husband is liable to be inherited by another person; “(d) Any institution or practice whereby a child or young person under the age of 18 years, is delivered by either or both of his natural parents or by his guardian to another person, whether for reward or not, with a view to the exploitation of the child or young person or of his labour.” 34. Various Governments and organizations provided the Special Rapporteur with examples of different cases of forced marriage which have been recognized as taking place in the context of trafficking in persons. The Government of Israel, for example, described how the Ministry of the Interior and the Police recently identified several isolated instances of procurers who had filed requests for family reunification with women from the former Soviet Union. The relationships were of very short or almost no duration and there was a significant age difference between the partners. It was suspected that the purpose behind such requests was to bring these 9 See the report of the Special Rapportuer on violence against women, its causes and consequences, to the Commission on Human Rights at its fifty-third session (E/CN.4/1997/47).