A/HRC/12/21 page 21 94. ILO estimates that about 20 per cent of all forced labour is an outcome of trafficking. According to the replies from Member States, on the other hand, instances of forced labour occur only as a result of trafficking. Forced labour which may occur in the informal sector, in supply chains and export processing zones, within indigenous or minority populations and in rural areas - the other 80 per cent - was not addressed. Statistics show that of those trafficked into forced labour, 43 per cent are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation, 32 per cent are trafficked for economic exploitation, and the remaining 25 per cent are trafficked for mixed or undetermined reasons.31 95. Unlike the attention devoted to trafficking, the international efforts to sign, ratify, enforce and monitor the slavery conventions32 pale in comparison. This despite the fact that there are 27 million enslaved people worldwide.33 Given the gravity of the human rights violations associated with such forms of slavery as bonded labour and the millions of people affected by such practices in every part of the world, it is important that the forms of slavery defined in the 1926 Convention and the 1956 Supplementary Convention be given their due prominence and attention. B. Recommendations 96. Forced labour and bonded labour constitute human rights violations that put a person in a condition of slavery, which is a crime under international law. Human rights need to be mainstreamed in development programmes set up to address the root causes of slavery. Such programmes include those on poverty reduction, employment empowerment programmes, microcredit, and agricultural programmes including land privatization and cultivation. Immigration and foreign employment programmes should also put human rights at the centre of their work. 97. Throughout the years, ILO has done tremendous work to eliminate forced labour, though programmes and actions addressing bonded labour as a separate crime and form of slavery are still insufficient. Complementing the actions that have been undertaken by ILO by bringing in a strong human rights perspective will make the impact holistic and strong. 98. In the area of prevention of bonded labour, the Special Rapporteur recommends the following: • Nationwide awareness campaigns should be developed on causes and consequence of bonded labour. 31 Ibid. 32 The 1926 Slavery Convention and the 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery. 33 See Kevin Bales, Ending Slavery: how we free today’s slaves, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2007.

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