FORCED LABOURER

An individual who performs work or services which are exacted under the threat of any penalty, and for which the said individual has not offered himself or herself voluntarily.

"Trafficking clearly generates a flow of profits, not only for the agents who provide transportation or cross-border movement of people, but also for the employers who exploit forced labourers in the place of destination.
The total illicit profits produced in one year by trafficked forced labourers are estimated to be about US$ 32 billion. Half of this profit is made in industrialized countries (US$ 15.5 billion) and close to one-third in Asia (US$ 9.7 billion). Globally, this represents an average of approximately US$ 13,000 per year for each forced labourer, or US$ 1,100 per month."
(International Labour Organization (ILO), A Global Alliance Against Forced Labour, 2005, visited 2009-06-22)

"Armed conflict is horrific for all, but for women and children it also poses special risks of sexual violence and exploitation, including rape, torture, mutilation and sexual slavery. [...] Unaccompanied girls are often captured by military and civilian men alike and used either as forced labourers by families in need of domestic workers or as ‘wives.' In Sierra Leone, it is believed that as many as 10,000 females may have been abducted, mostly from the rural areas, to serve the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Others were ‘donated' by relatives. Their primary role was to provide domestic and sexual services."
(United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Profiting from Abuse. An Investigation into the Sexual Exploitation of our Children, 2001, visited 2006-09-06)

The ILO's definition of forced labour comprises two basic elements: the work or service is exacted under the threat of penalty and it is undertaken involuntarily. The penalty does not need to be in the form of penal sanctions, but may also take the form of a loss of rights or privileges. Arguably, its most extreme form involves physical violence or restraint, or even death threats addressed to the victim or relatives. There can also be subtler forms of menace, sometimes of a psychological nature. Other penalties can be of a financial nature, including economic penalties linked to debts, the non-payment of wages, or the loss of wages accompanied by threats of dismissal if workers refuse to work overtime beyond the scope of their contract or of the national law. Employers sometimes require workers to hand over their identity papers, and may use the threat of confiscation of these documents in order to exact forced labour.

In practice, forced labourers can be identified as such if any of the following types of lack of consent to work are applicable:

• Birth or descent into "slave" or bonded status
• Physical abduction or kidnapping
• Sale of a person
• Physical confinement in the work location – in prison or in private detention
• Psychological compulsion, i.e. an order to work, backed up by a credible threat of penalty for non-compliance
• Induced indebtedness (by falsification of accounts, inflated prices, reduced value of goods or services produced, excessive interest charges, etc.)
• Deception or false promises about types and terms of work
• Withholding and non-payment of wages
• Retention of identity documents or other personal possessions

Moreover, the actual presence or credible threat of a penalty can take the form of:

• Physical violence against a worker, a family or close associates
• Sexual violence
• (Threat of) supernatural retaliation
• Imprisonment or other physical confinement
• Financial penalties
• Denunciation to authorities (police, immigration, etc.) or deportation
• Dismissal from current employment
• Exclusion from future employment
• Exclusion from community and social life
• Removal of rights or privileges
• Deprivation of food, shelter or other necessities
• Shift to even worse working conditions
• Loss of social status

The categories of forced labour are defined by the ILO as follows:

• Slavery and abduction
• Compulsory participation in public works
• Forced labour in agriculture and remote rural areas
• Domestic workers in forced labour situations
• Bonded labour
• Forced labour exacted by the military (with particular reference to Myanmar)
• Forced labour related to trafficking in persons
• Prison-linked forced labour

(adapted from International Labour Organization (ILO), Programme for the Promotion of the Declaration, visited 2009-06-22)

Because of the illegal nature of forced labour, there are no reliable national estimates of the scale of the problem. Some researchers have suggested that there are 27 million forced labourers worldwide, but the ILO estimates that the figure is closer to 12.3 million. This means that there are at least two victims of forced labour per 1,000 people. Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa have the highest incidence of forced labour in relation to their population.

Forced labour can be imposed by the state or by private agents. About 20% of cases are state-imposed - this includes people who are made to work by governments, penal systems, the military or rebel groups. However, most forced labour is exacted by private agents for economic exploitation - this includes bonded labour and forced domestic and agricultural work. About 11% of forced labour imposed by private agents takes the form of commercial sexual exploitation.
(adapted from BBC News, Forced Labour: Global Problem, visited 2009-06-22)

Although they are often used interchangeably, the terms "slavery" and "forced labour" must be distinguished. Slavery is one form of forced labour. It involves absolute control of one person over another person, or perhaps one group of persons by another social group. Slavery is defined as the status or condition of a person over whom any of the powers of the right of ownership are exercised. A person in a situation of slavery will certainly be forced to work, but this is not the only defining feature of the relationship. Moreover, the situation is permanent often based on descent, rather than of a fixed duration.