A/HRC/27/53
Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions
and Practices Similar to Slavery of 1956, as well as all other issues covered previously by
the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery. She will also continue to promote
the effective implementation of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Forced Labour
Convention, 1930 (No. 29) and the 2014 Protocol thereto, 1 as well as ILO Convention
No. 189 (2011) and Recommendation No. 201 concerning decent work for domestic
workers, which represent a significant advance in the international legal framework
protecting the rights of domestic workers, including the right to education for child
domestic workers.
18.
During her tenure, the Special Rapporteur will continue to address the different
forms of contemporary slavery, including subtler forms of slavery that deserve specific
attention, such as bonded labour, domestic servitude, early and forced marriage, child slave
work, servile marriages and caste-based forms of slavery, which affect the lives of many
and are not confined to developing and poor countries. She will also continue to work on
the remaining challenges to the eradication of contemporary forms of slavery, as
highlighted by her predecessor in her report to the Human Rights Council at its twentyfourth session (A/HRC/24/43).
19.
The Special Rapporteur will continue to investigate, monitor and address, relying on
the support of governments, other United Nations agencies and mechanisms, civil society
organizations, trade unions, employers and activists, various contemporary manifestations
of slavery involving children in agriculture, tobacco tilling, cotton picking, entertainment,
construction, mining and quarrying.
20.
In particular, the Special Rapporteur views the elimination of domestic servitude as
a key priority of the mandate, as that form of slavery continues to exist across both
developed and developing countries. Women, low-skilled migrant workers, indigenous
people, internally displaced persons and other marginalized groups and groups that are
discriminated against are the most vulnerable to exploitation in domestic servitude.2
21.
In that regard, the Special Rapporteur will follow up on the key recommendations
made by her predecessor for the elimination of all forms of domestic servitude. In her
report to the Human Rights Council at its fifteenth session (A/HRC/15/20), the previous
Special Rapporteur addressed the root causes of domestic servitude and its impact on
women and children and made concrete recommendations for the monitoring and
enforcement of labour standards. Besides the implementation of existing recommendations,
which remains a key challenge, more research, notably qualitative reporting and situational
analysis, is required on the often invisible workers in domestic servitude, including their
existence in developed economies, which is often obscured.3
22.
The Special Rapporteur is concerned about the continued high prevalence of
children in domestic servitude, bonded labour and other forms of slavery. Children in
domestic work present a particular concern globally, in both developed and developing
countries. Many child domestic workers are not only subject to exploitation and hazardous
work, but often work in circumstances amounting to slavery or bonded labour in order to
fulfil debts that they or their parents have incurred to the employer or to recruitment agents.
1
2
3
6
The text of the Protocol to the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), adopted on 11 June 2014 at
the 103rd session of the International Labour Conference, held in Geneva, is available from
www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---relconf/documents/meetingdocument/
wcms_246615.pdf.
Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, The New Slave in the Kitchen: Debt Bondage
and Women Migrant Domestic Workers in Asia (Chiang Mai, Thailand, 2011).
Anti-Slavery International, Home Truths: Wellbeing and Vulnerabilities of Child Domestic Workers,
(London, March 2013).
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