A/HRC/27/53
multiple stakeholders, including governments, civil society organizations, the private
sector, trade unions and consumers, are critical.
28.
Another key area of focus of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on
contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, is child and forced
marriage. The Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and
Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery obligates Member States to take all
“practicable and necessary legislative and other measures to bring about progressively and
as soon as possible the complete abolition or abandonment” of, inter alia, any institution or
practice which amounts to forced marriage, such as when a woman, without the right to
refuse, is promised or given in marriage on payment to her parents, guardians, family or
another person or group; when a husband, his family or his clan transfers his wife to
another person for value received or for any other reason; or the inheriting by another
person of a woman on the death of her husband (see art. 1). Early and forced marriage can,
under certain circumstances, constitute servile marriage or result in domestic servitude or
other forms of slavery. The previous mandate holder drew links between child marriage and
slavery, and pointed out that Member States were obliged to prohibit and eliminate slavery
as a non-derogable and fundamental principle of international law. 8 Child marriage is
linked to the thematic issues of trafficking for forced labour, commercial sexual
exploitation, migration and contemporary forms of slavery, which reinforces the need for
cooperation among the respective mandate holders as part of a comprehensive multi-agency
and multi-stakeholder effort to eradicate those practices from society, as women and girls in
child and forced marriages may experience conditions within the marriage that meet
“international legal definitions of slavery and slavery-like practices”, including forced
labour. Furthermore, “a potentially high proportion of child marriage cases appear to
constitute the worst forms of child labour under the 1999 ILO Convention No. 182.”9
29.
The mandate calls for a coherent global response, involving evidence-based
analysis, together with technical assistance to Member States which are committed to
eradicating the scourge of contemporary slavery from their labour markets. It requires
strengthening of the global partnership, involving unions, civil society organizations, nongovernmental organizations, human rights advocates, the private sector, the legal sector and
the judiciary, governments and public-sector institutions, United Nations agencies and
mechanisms, academic and research institutions, as well as international foundations
committed to research and advocacy.
30.
The mandate also requires a multi-faceted approach combining law and policy
frameworks which provide for prevention, protection, prosecution and redress at the
national and international levels, with consumer and civil society advocacy, rejecting goods
produced through forced labour or other forms of slave labour and generating consumer
awareness. It also requires that business practices be congruent with human rights, ethical
and environmentally sound sustainable development, and durable peace and security for all.
It requires a concerted global initiative to eradicate poverty and enforce the basic principles
of justice, dignity and human rights for all. At the most basic level, it requires resources,
mechanisms and processes for the effective implementation of recommendations made
pursuant to fact-finding missions and consultations conducted as part of the mandate.
8
9
8
See A/HRC/21/41; also A/HRC/24/43/Add.2, especially para. 125 and A/HRC/24/43.
A/HRC/26/22, para. 21; see also Catherine Turner, Out of the Shadows: Child Marriage and Slavery,
(London, Anti-Slavery International, April 2013).
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents