Definitions Of Slavery

Officially slavery was abolished in 1927 at the Slavery Convention, yet the practice still thrives due to the complicity of some governments, and ignorance and indifference throughout the world. Slavery exists today despite the fact that it is banned in most of the countries where it is practiced. It is also prohibited by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1956 UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery - The Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery. Ultimately slavery exists because we allow it to exist.

The image that comes to mind for many when they hear the word slavery is the transatlantic slave trade. We think of the buying and selling of people, their shipment from one continent to another and the abolition of the trade in the early 1800s. Slavery is often thought of as part of our history rather than our present. Unfortunately, slavery is not history, it is a horrifying reality that is taking place in the world today! There are many different types of slavery which include:

Forms Of Slavery
Forced Labor - This form of slavery often results when individuals are lured by the promise of a good job but instead find themselves subjected to slaving conditions, working without payment and enduring physical abuse, often in harsh and hazardous conditions. Victims include domestic workers, construction workers and migrant workers.

Chattel Slavery - Chattel slavery is typically racially-based. Chattel slaves are considered their masters’ property and exchanged for personal property or money. The perform labor and are expected to offer sexual favors. Once of age, their children are expected to do the same. Slavery by descent is where people are either born into a slave class or are from a 'group' that society views as suited to being used as slave labor.

Debt Bondage - Bonded labor, is the most widely practiced form of slavery around the world. In Southeast Asia, where it is most prevalent, debt bondage claims an estimated 15 to 20 million victims. The staggering poverty there forces many parents to offer themselves or their own children as collateral against a loan. Though they are promised they will work only until their debt is paid off, the reality is that the debt becomes impossible to pay off. As a result, it is often inherited by the bonded laborer’s children, perpetuating a vicious cycle that can claim several generations.

Wage Slavery - s most common in underdeveloped areas, where employers can afford to employ people at low wages, knowing they can't afford to risk their employment. Most child laborers can be considered to be wage slaves.

Contract Slavery - These are generally poor and often illiterate people who have been tricked into signing contracts they do not understand and must be repaid through their labor.

Sex Slavery - Women and children forced into prostitution are often lured by false offers of a good job and then beaten and forced to work in brothels. In other cases, victims pay tens of thousands of dollars to get to another country and are then forced into prostitution in pay off their own debts. In still others, women or children are kidnapped from their home countries. An estimated two million women and children are sold into sex slavery around the world every year.

Forced Marriage - Women and girls who are married without choice and are forced into lives of servitude often accompanied by physical violence.

Slavery Convention of 1926
"Slavery" means, as defined in the Slavery Convention of 1926, the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised, and "slave" means a person in such condition or status;

"A person of servile status" means a person in the condition or status resulting from any of the institutions or practices mentioned in article I of this Convention;

"Slave trade" means and includes all acts involved in the capture, acquisition or disposal of a person with intent to reduce him to slavery; all acts involved in the acquisition of a slave with a view to selling or exchanging him; all acts of disposal by sale or exchange of a person acquired with a view to being sold or exchanged; and, in general, every act of trade or transport in slaves by whatever means of conveyance.

The Slave Trade
The act of conveying or attempting to convey slaves from one country to another by whatever means of transport, or of being accessory thereto, shall be a criminal offence under the laws of the States Parties to this Convention and persons convicted thereof shall be liable to very severe penalties.

The States Parties shall take all effective measures to prevent ships and aircraft authorized to fly their flags from conveying slaves and to punish persons guilty of such acts or of using national flags for that purpose.

The States Parties shall take all effective measures to ensure that their ports, airfields and coasts are not used for the conveyance of slaves.

The States Parties to this Convention shall exchange information in order to ensure the practical coordination of the measures taken by them in combating the slave trade and shall inform each other of every case of the slave trade, and of every attempt to commit this criminal offence, which comes to their notice.

Slavery And Institutions And Practices Similar To Slavery
In a country where the abolition or abandonment of slavery, or of the institutions or practices mentioned in article I of this Convention, is not yet complete, the act of mutilating, branding or otherwise marking a slave or a person of servile status in order to indicate his status, or as a punishment, or for any other reason, or of being accessory thereto, shall be a criminal offence under the laws of the States Parties to this Convention and persons convicted thereof shall be liable to punishment.

1 . The act of enslaving another person or of inducing another person to give himself or a person dependent upon him into slavery, or of attempting these acts, or being accessory thereto, or being a party to a conspiracy to accomplish any such acts, shall be a criminal offence under the laws of the States Parties to this Convention and persons convicted thereof shall be liable to punishment.

2. Subject to the provisions of the introductory paragraph of article I of this Convention, the provisions of paragraph 1 of the present article shall also apply to the act of inducing another person to place himself or a person dependent upon him into the servile status resulting from any of the institutions or practices mentioned in article 1, to any attempt to perform such acts, to being accessory thereto, and to being a party to a conspiracy to accomplish any such acts.

Each of the States Parties to this Convention shall take all practicable and necessary legislative and other measures to bring about progressively and as soon as possible the complete abolition or abandonment of the following institutions and practices, where they still exist and whether or not they are covered by the definition of slavery contained in article 1 of the Slavery Convention signed at Geneva on 25 September 1926:

(Debt bondage, that is to say, the status or condition arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or of those of a person under his control as security for a debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined;

Serfdom, that is to say, the condition or status of a tenant who is by law, custom or agreement bound to live and labor on land belonging to another person and to render some determinate service to such other person, whether for reward or not, and is not free to change his status;

Any institution or practice whereby:

A woman, without the right to refuse, is promised or given in marriage on payment of a consideration in money or in kind to her parents, guardian, family or any other person or group; or

The husband of a woman, his family, or his clan, has the right to transfer her to another person for value received or otherwise; or

A woman on the death of her husband is liable to be inherited by another person;

Any institution or practice whereby a child or young person under the age of 18 years, is delivered by either or both of his natural parents or by his guardian to another person, whether for reward or not, with a view to the exploitation of the child or young person or of his labor.