Citation

Fouladvand S. Int. J. Law Crime Justice 2018; 52: 129-143.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijlcj.2017.11.001

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Fourteen years after the UN Human Trafficking Protocol - hailed as "the single most important development in the fight against human trafficking"1 - was adopted by the United Nations, a more modest document was opened for signature by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). This is the 2014 Protocol to the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29) which entered into force on 9th November 20162 and which, like its better-known sister Protocol, is aimed at the "effective elimination" of trafficking in persons.3 Here, the similarities stop. The UN Human Trafficking Protocol is a penalising document, requiring the vigorous prosecution of organised criminals, which has been ratified by 169 states parties and enthusiastically championed by the United States. The ILO Protocol, by contrast aims at systematic preventive and regulatory action by "the competent authorities … in coordination with employers' and workers' organizations" and has been ratified by eighteen countries.4 The purpose of this article is to determine whether the advent of the 2014 ILO Protocol is evidence of the beginning of a fundamental shift in approach by the international community, or just another false dawn.

A comparison of the text of the two Protocols reveals further profound differences of approach. The UN Human Trafficking Protocol emphasises that the criminality which it seeks to suppress relates exclusively to the forcible recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of victims, particularly women and girls, by organised criminals. There is no substantive reference to forced labour or slavery or the more general context of such activities. By contrast, the ILO Protocol, with much greater ambition, maintains that protection should be extended to all "women and men, girls and boys" and not just those trafficked. Trafficking itself must be addressed in the context of forced or compulsory labour which 'violates the human rights and dignity of millions ….

Language: en