Strengthening action to accelerate the eradication of forced labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour in West and Northern Africa: Opportunities and Challenges Discussion paper for the West and North African sub-regional consultation on the Alliance 8.7 Prepared by Yaw Ofosu 1. Introduction The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), officially The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, constitute an ambitious set of international goals aimed at “[ending] all forms of poverty, [fighting] inequalities and [tackling] climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind.”1 Child labour, forced labour, human trafficking and contemporary forms of slavery are, undoubtedly, some of the most egregious manifestations of poverty and inequality. As we will see below, despite significant progress in lowering poverty levels in recent decades, notably under the Millennium Development Goals, reducing the number of children in child labour, and promoting laws and policy measures tackling forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking, large numbers of men, women and children remain trapped in situations of abuse and exploitation. Many more also live in situations that make them vulnerable to such forms of abuse. Effective action to end these practices requires multi-dimensional. Goal 8 of the SDGs seeks to “promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.” Its 10 substantive targets cover, inter alia: the achievement of rapid per capita economic growth in Least Developed Countries (LDCs); enhanced productivity in labour-intensive sectors; significant reductions in the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training; and protection of labour rights and promotion of safe working environments for all workers.2 Target 8.7 commits the international community to Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms.3 In addition to Goal 8, several of the other SDGs are relevant to the achievement of decent work for all and the elimination of the exploitative practices and abuses covered by Target 8.7. Examples include targets under poverty (Goal 1), hunger (2), health and well-being (3), education (4), gender equality (5), industry and infrastructure (9), reduced inequalities (10), and peace, justice and strong institutions (16). In view of the interconnected and mutually reinforcing nature of the 17 goals and 169 targets, the SDGs as a whole provide an integrated framework, at both national and international levels, for addressing child labour, forced labour, human trafficking and modern slavery. The SDGs envisage country-led implementation through the alignment of national policies and programmes with the global goals, using multi-stakeholder partnerships as a key implementation strategy (SDG Target 17.16). This approach fits well with the cross-sectoral nature of the problems underlying Target 8.7. Given their scale and complexity, the attainment of Target 8.7 requires concerted, focused and broad-based action, active participation and close collaboration by many actors: governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, faith- based organizations, the media, and academia. In this regard, the ILO is working with other stakeholders to establish Alliance 8.7, a Global Alliance to eradicate forced labour, 1 UN (2015). Available at: http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/. 2 For a full list of the 17 goals and their targets, see (UN, 2015). 3 See UN (2015). 1 modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour. The objective is to bring all concerned parties together to join forces in achieving the target. In the process, the partnership will contribute to the attainment of other SDGs, notably those relating to poverty (Goal 1), education (4), gender equality (5), decent work (8), reduced inequalities (9), and peace and justice (16). The present paper looks at the considerable opportunities and potential momentum offered by the 2030 Agenda for achieving effective, timely and long-lasting results in the fight against child labour, forced labour, human trafficking and modern slavery in Africa, and the challenges that need to be overcome. The paper aims at informing discussions among ILO constituents and partners in Western and Northern Africa on the establishment, strategy and functioning of Alliance 8.7. 2. Forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking in Africa 1. Forced labour can take several different forms, including debt bondage, trafficking and other forms of modern slavery. The ILO defines forced labour as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily.”4 The framework for defining forced labour is provided by the ILO Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105), and the recent ILO Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention (P 29) and Recommendation 2014 (No. 203). The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, often referred to as the Palermo Protocol, defines trafficking in persons as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the Box 1: ILO classification of forced labour: giving or receiving of payments or benefits to Forced labour imposed by the state: all forms of work exacted by achieve the consent of a person having control public authorities, military or paramilitary, compulsory participation in public works and forced prison labour in over another person” for sexual exploitation, contravention of ILO Conventions 29 and 105. forced labour, slavery and similar practices, Forced labour imposed by private agents for sexual exploitation: any commercial sexual activity, including pornography, exacted 5 servitude and the removal of organs. Thus, from the victim by fraud or force. from these definitions, forced labour is closely Forced labour imposed by private agents for labour exploitation: includes bonded labour, forced domestic work, forced labour of related to trafficking, as affirmed by the migrants in many economic sectors and work imposed in the Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour context of slavery or vestiges of slavery; forced illicit activities. Convention (No. 29), the obvious exception Source: ILO (2014b, p. 5) being trafficking for organ removal. Similarly, “almost all slavery practices, including 4 Convention No. 29, Article 2. 5 Article 3. The text of the Convention and its Protocols is available here: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/treaties/CTOC/. [August 2016] 2 trafficking in people and bonded labour, contain some element of forced labour.”6 Following the ILO definition, forced labour encompasses trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation as well as other contemporary forms of slavery. The present paper uses “forced labour” in this broader sense. 2. The ILO estimates the number of people who are victims of forced labour around the world at 20.9 million (ILO, 2012).7 Of these, 14.2 million (65 per cent) were victims of labour exploitation by individuals and enterprises in the private economy, in sectors such as agriculture, fishing, construction, manufacturing and domestic work; 4.5 million (22 per cent) were victims of forced sexual exploitation; and 2.2 million (10 per cent) in state-imposed forced labour, such as prison work under conditions contravening relevant ILO standards, and work imposed by state or rebel armed forces. Women and girls constituted 55 per cent of the victims, compared to 45 per cent men and boys. Over a quarter (26 per cent) were aged 17 years or lower (5.5 million children).8 Africa (including North and sub-Saharan Africa) had the second largest number of victims, 3.7 million (18 per cent of the total), after Asia and the Pacific (11.7 million). Box 1 provides details of the three categories used by the ILO in its global estimates of forced labour. 3. There is a lack of reliable statistical data on the incidence of the various forms of forced labour in Africa.9 According to a typology of forced labour occurring in Africa by Dottridge (2005), prevalent forms include: adults and children forced to work or earn money for others (in their home country, in another country in Africa, or in a country outside Africa); forced recruitment of adults and children into armed groups, as combatants or as civilian workers; adults and children forced to carry out public works or communal tasks by traditional chiefs or other political authorities, including forced labour in prisons for the personal benefit of individuals; and children forced to work, other than for their own parents, particularly as domestic servants or child soldiers or in prostitution. Other forms include adults and children forced to work by individuals with religious authority, services which the members of one social or ethnic group are required to provide to another, cases related to traditional slavery, and servile marriage or work involving