A/HRC/15/20* 34. Domestic bonded labour can be linked to gender-discriminatory cultural practices. Among certain ethnic groups in Ghana and neighbouring countries, for instance, girls as young as 6–10 years old are forced into bonded labour, serving as so-called trokosi or vudusi in the household of priests at local fetish shrines. They are given by their parents to the shrine to pay the shrine for erasing a moral failing or curse attached to the parents. In addition to performing domestic chores and ritual duties at the shrine, a trokosi is usually also expected to work long hours on farmland belonging to the shrine. From puberty, she is expected to endure sexual relations with the fetish priest. Although the Government of Ghana has criminalized the practice, it has not yet been eradicated.11 3. Exploitation of children in domestic work 35. The exploitation of children in domestic work can amount to domestic servitude. The 1956 Supplementary Convention on Slavery specifically outlaws “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” (art. 1 (d)). 36. Domestic work is particularly hazardous for children, as the nature of the work typically requires long work hours, including night-time work. Children in domestic service are often expected to carry heavy loads or handle dangerous and toxic substances such as insecticides or bleach. Owing to their physical and social isolation, children engaged in live-in domestic work are at a particularly great risk of physical or sexual abuse or humiliating and degrading treatment. In most contexts, domestic work outside the family, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children, and falls within the ambit of the Convention concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour (ILO Convention No. 182).12 No child, regardless of the child’s age or “consent”, must be engaged in one of the worst forms of child labour. 37. Children in domestic work will very often drop out of school because of their circumstances or the demands of their employer. This adds to their vulnerability to exploitation. 38. In many cases, poverty will make parents involuntary accomplices to the exploitation of their own children. In Haiti (see A/HRC/12/21/Add.1), parents from poor families will often send one or more of their children to stay with more affluent families, who may be relatives, family friends or complete strangers. In its idealized form, the practice should ensure that the host family takes care of the child and pays for its schooling, while expecting the child in return to take up a modest set of household chores. In reality, the majority of the estimated 150,000–500,000 so-called restavèk children in Haiti are exploited in domestic servitude. They frequently work extremely long hours without pay, are deprived of schooling, health care and adequate food or shelter and often suffer physical and sexual abuse. The practice is so associated with abuse that the word restavèk (which literally means “to stay with” in Haitian Creole) has become a pejorative term. 39. The restavèk system appears to have cultural links to West and Central Africa. In several countries of that region, local culture requires families to send some of their children to live with paternal or maternal relatives. The practice was traditionally meant to 11 12 8 Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, mission to Ghana, A/HRC/7/6/Add.3, paras. 42–50. See also Committee on the Rights of the Child, concluding observations on Malaysia, CRC/C/MYS/CO/1 (2007), para. 91. GE.10-15169