Slavery resources

Anti-Slavery International, Jan Jagriti Jendra, The National Domestic Workers’ Movement, and Volunteers for Social Justice.

This submission to the Universal Periodic Review of India, focuses on slavery practices in India. These include bonded labour, which occurs across a variety of sectors; trafficking in persons within Indian borders; and the widespread abuse and exploitation of women working as domestic workers, including trafficking of children for domestic servitude. The submission also focuses on cases of trafficking and forced labour of workers migrating internationally. It is based on information gathered through a number of different projects in India by the above named organisations.

2016 Submission on bonded labour, trafficking and domestic work in India:

State of Play: Forced Labour in India’s brick kilns.

Anti-Slavery International, Galy Kadir Abdelkader, Moussa Zangaou.

This report focuses on the ‘wahaya’ practice in Niger, whereby girls and women of ‘slave caste’ are bought and sold as unofficial wives. They are referred to as ‘fifth wives’, as they are additional to the four wives permitted to Niger, but they are not officially married to their master and therefore have none of the legal rights and protection to which legal wives would have recourse. ‘Wahaya’ are essentially slaves used for domestic labour and sexual gratification.

The report presents testimonies from individual wahaya to expose the shocking realities of the practice and calls for efforts to end these forced unions.

Anti-Slavery International.

New report from Anti-Slavery International exposes how top UK high street brands are selling clothing made by girls in slavery in southern India. Our research has uncovered the routine use of forced labour of girls and young women in the spinning mills and garment factories of five Indian clothing manufacturers that supply major western clothing retail brands.

‘Never Work Alone’ is a guide for trade unions and other civil society organisations to jointly combat modern-day slavery and trafficking of workers. The report is the result of a two-year project in which trade unions and NGOs have looked into each other’s actions and approaches to combat slavery and labour trafficking. It examines different approaches and shows four major common grounds for action, each of them documented with a series of best practices.

Anti-Slavery International and Eaves Poppy Project
Legal guide by Anti-Slavery International and Eaves Poppy Project warns that victims of trafficking for forced prostitution and forced labour are vulnerable to being re-trafficked because of a failure of the criminal justice system to provide financial compensation for their ordeal. The guide aims to be a starting point to help lawyers take a creative and comprehensive approach in evaluating the legal remedies available to trafficking victims. It also includes two practical case studies and recommendations drawn from the experience of several practitioners in the system.

Darfur Consortium: An African and International Civil Society for Darfur.

Research by the Darfur Consortium has found that Government supported militia, like the Janjaweed and the Popular Defence Forces, together with the Sudanese Armed Forces, have systematically abducted civilians for the purposes of sexual slavery and forced labour as part of the Darfur conflict. The report investigates the pattern of abductions, the issues behind them, including ethnicity and lack of protection, and concludes with some recommendations to address the abductions.

Anti-Slavery International, Norma Kang Muico.

This report focuses on returned North Korean migrants who are subjected to forced labour in North Korean prison camps following their deportation from China. The findings of the report are based on interviews carried out with North Koreans who were subjected to forced labour while in detention. The report includes photographs and 30 cases. Most of those interviewed were subjected to forced labour before being prosecuted, which violates international standards as well as North Korea’s domestic law. The report also outlines what measures need to be taken to address this situation (also available in Korean, see translations page)

Christine Beddoe, ECPAT UK
The report highlights the cases of 80 children known or suspected of being trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation, labour exploitation and forced marriage. More shocking is that 48 of these children have gone missing from social services care and have never been found.