Context

A recent U.N. report which highlighted contemporary forms of slavery, pointed out that Child labour, caste-based discrimination and poverty are closely inter-linked in India.

About

• Article 4 of the UDHR states that ‘No one shall be held in slavery or servitude: slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms’.
• Slavery was the first human rights issue to arouse wide international concern yet it still continues today and slavery-like practices also remain a grave and persistent problem.

Key Findings:

• Contemporary forms of slavery are widely practiced around the world, including:
  • forced labour for China’s Uyghur minority
  • bonded labour for the lowest caste Dalits in South Asia
  • domestic servitude in Gulf countries, Brazil and Colombia
• Main causes of contemporary forms of slavery
  • Deep-rooted intersecting forms of discrimination,
  • Result of historical legacies, such as
    • slavery and colonisation
    • systems of inherited status
    • formalised and State-sponsored discrimination
• Child Labour:
  • Child labour (among children 5 to 17 years of age), including its worst forms, exists in all regions of the world.
  • In Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East, the Americas and Europe, between 4% and 6% of children are said to be in child labour, and the percentage is much higher in Africa (21.6%), with the highest rate in sub-Saharan Africa (23.9%).
  • In India, child labour, caste-based discrimination and poverty are closely interlinked. 
• Dalits in South Asia:
  • Dalit women in South Asia face severe discrimination, and as a result they are systematically denied choices and freedoms in all spheres of life.
  • Manual scavenging, predominantly carried out by Dalit women, is widely regarded as forced labour and a contemporary form of slavery, entailing harsh working conditions that have a negative impact on mental and physical health.
  • Dalits in Bangladesh are forced to undertake certain types of labour as a consequence of their assigned caste status and are almost exclusively working in “unclean” jobs in urban areas, like street sweeping and burying the dead.
• Forced marriage:
• • Forced marriage of women and girls is a concern in Asia, including Cambodia, India, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.
  • In parts of the Balkans, half of all Roma women ages 20 to 24 are married before age 18, compared to around 10% nationally.