Trafficking for forced labour in the form of coercive and deceptive recruitment is a serious problem throughout the world:
Forced Labour and trafficking in persons involves movement of persons for the purpose of performing labour, most probably to engage in illicit activities or employment to be carried out under working conditions that are below the statutory standards.
It involves an agent, recruiter or transporter who will most likely derive profit from this intervention. In practical terms, traffickers use people to generate income for themselves from forced labour exacted from those they traffick.
Coercion may not be evident at the beginning of the trafficking process or cycle. The person may enter into an agreement with the recruiting agent on an apparently voluntary basis, albeit often without having been given full information. But conditions at the destination point are likely to involve coercion, including physical restrictions on freedom of movement; abuse or violence; and fraud, often in the form of non-payment of promised wages. Victims frequently find themselves trapped in debt bondage and other slavery-like conditions.
Varying kinds of restriction are imposed on the freedom of the worker to terminate employment, or even to leave the workplace. Often there is a practice of confiscating workers’ identity documents to prevent them from running away. Such abusive labour practices are condemned and outlawed by International Law and by individual Governments yet the practices continue.
The short film linked here depicts an instance of Forced Labour.
(for further information on forced labour see STOPPING FORCED LABOUR Global Report under the Follow-up to the ILO Declarationon Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work INTERNATIONAL LABOUR CONFERENCE 89th Session 2001Report I (B) PINTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE GENEVA)
