What is forced labour?

The international legal definition of forced labour

According to the ILO Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), forced or compulsory labour is:

"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."

This definition consists of three elements:

Work or service refers to all types of work occurring in any activity, industry or sector including in the informal economy.
Menace of any penalty refers to a wide range of penalties used to compel someone to work.
Involuntariness: The terms “offered voluntarily” refer to the free and informed consent of a worker to take a job and his or her freedom to leave at any time. This is not the case for example when an employer or recruiter makes false promises so that a worker take a job he or she would not otherwise have accepted.

Cartoon showing a young man pulls a rickshaw. The passenger is holding a loaf of bread in front of him at the end of a fishing rod. — Cartoon by Eshonkulov Makhmudjon - ILO/RHSF

Convention No. 29, in Article 2(2), also provides for exceptions to the definition of forced labour by specifically referring to five situations in which compulsory labour may be imposed:

work of a purely military character exacted in virtue of compulsory military service;

normal civic obligations;

work or service exacted from any person as a consequence of a conviction in a court of law, carried out under the supervision of a public authority;

work exacted in cases of emergency, such as wars or natural calamities; and

minor communal services in the direct interest of the community involved.

Each of these exceptions is subject to the observance of certain conditions that define their limits. If these limits are not respected, this can amount to a situation of compulsory labour imposed by the State.
The Abolition of Forced Labour Convention No. 105 adopted by the ILO in 1957 primarily concerns forced labour imposed by state authorities. It prohibits specifically the use of forced labour:

as punishment for the expression of political views,

for the purposes of economic development,

as a means of labour discipline,

as a punishment for participation in strikes,

as a means of racial, religious or other discrimination.
“Forced labour”, “human trafficking” (also called “trafficking in persons”) and “slavery” are terms that are often used interchangeably. However, while these concepts do have significant overlap, they are conceptually distinct and each has a clear definition in international law.

What is trafficking in persons?
The definition of trafficking in persons, provided by the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, 2000 (UN Protocol), in Article 3(a), encompasses three elements:

Acts: Recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons.

Means: The means that are used to accomplish one of the prohibited acts; namely, the use of threat or 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 giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person.

Purpose: Whether this act, using the above means, was conducted for the purpose of exploitation. The UN Protocol provides that “exploitation” includes “at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs”.

What is slavery?
“Slavery” is defined under Article 1(1) of the League of Nations Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery (the Slavery Convention), 1926, as “the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised”. Slavery is an institution of complete ownership, in which an individual is subjected to the full control of the slave owner who can make decisions for this individual on education (attending school or not), work (type and conditions) or even private life (who to marry). The prohibition of slavery in international law has achieved “jus cogens” status, meaning that all states accept it as a principle that cannot be derogated from. Nevertheless, and although slavery is prohibited by law in most countries, the practice or its vestiges remain in certain countries. In most cases, people subjected to slavery will find themselves in a situation of psychological, economic and social dependence. They have no option than work for their “master” and will fall under the definition of forced labour provided by the Convention No. 29.
Based on the definitions provided by the related international treaties, there is a significant overlap between forced labour, human trafficking and slavery. It is important for stakeholders involved in developing and implementing NAPs to understand these concepts and their precise scope.

© ILO

International Labour Standards on Forced Labour

The Forced Labour Convention (No. 29), adopted in 1930, contains the definition of forced labour and provides that it should be punished as a crime. This is one of the most ratified ILO standards.

The Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (No. 105), adopted in 1957, deals with state-imposed forms of forced labour. This is one of the most ratified ILO standards.

The Protocol to the Forced Labour Convention, (P029), adopted in 2014, requires ratifying countries to take effective measures to prevent forced labour, protect victims and ensure their access to justice.

The Protocol complements the Convention No. 29, therefore only countries that have ratified this Convention can ratify the Protocol.

The Forced Labour Recommendation (No. 203), adopted in 2014, provides further guidance on how to implement the Protocol.

It is a non-binding document that does not require ratification.

Text of the Recommendation

FAQ on forced labour

Forced labour and slavery are not a thing of the past. They have ancient roots in history and still exist today in many different forms. In fact, there are more people in slavery today than at any other time in history. Almost 50 million people around the world were victims of modern slavery in 2021, including about 28 million in forced labour, and 22 million in forced marriages. If they all lived together in a single city, it would be one of the biggest cities in the world.

Forced labour has grown in recent years. A simple comparison with the previous estimates indicates an increase of 2.7 million in the number people in forced labour between 2016 and 2021, which translates to a rise in the prevalence of forced labour from 3.4 to 3.5 per thousand people in the world.

Source: the 2021 Global Estimates of Modern Slavery

Check the ILO data on forced labour for more information.
Forced labour affects in one way or another every country in the world; it is a truly global problem. Statistics on prevalence are highly significant since they indicate the level of risk that people face in different regions.

Asia and the Pacific is host to more than half of the global total (15.1 million), followed by Europe and Central Asia (4.1 million), Africa (3.8 million), the Americas (3.6 million), and the Arab States (0.9 million). But this regional ranking changes considerably when forced labour is expressed as a proportion of the population. By this measure, forced labour is highest in the Arab States (5.3 per thousand people), followed by Europe and Central Asia (4.4 per thousand), the Americas and Asia and the Pacific (both at 3.5 per thousand), and Africa (2.9 per thousand).

Source: the 2021 Global Estimates of Modern Slavery.
Forced labour affects all population groups, young and old, male and female. But some groups are more vulnerable than others.

Women and girls in forced labour are much more likely than their male counterparts to be in domestic work, while men in forced labour are much more likely to be in the construction sector. Women are more likely to be coerced through wage non-payment and abuse of vulnerability, and men through threats of violence and financial penalties. Women are also more likely than men to be subjected to physical and sexual violence and threats against family members.

Migrant workers face a higher risk of forced labour than other workers. The forced labour prevalence of adult migrant workers is more than three times higher than that of adult non-migrant workers. This figure makes clear that when migrant workers are not protected by law or are unable to exercise their rights, migration is irregular or poorly governed, or where recruitment practices are unfair or unethical, migration can lead to situations of vulnerability to forced labour.

Source: the 2021 Global Estimates of Modern Slavery.
Most forced labour occurs in the private economy. Eighty-six per cent of forced labour cases are imposed by private actors – 63 per cent in the private economy in sectors other than commercial sexual exploitation and 23 per cent in forced commercial sexual exploitation. State-imposed forced labour accounts for the remaining 14 per cent of people in forced labour.

Source: the 2021 Global Estimates of Modern Slavery.
Forced labour is a huge business. An ILO study estimated that forced labour generates annual profits of over US$ 150 billion, which is as much as the combined profits of the four most profitable companies in the world. The annual profits generated per victim of forced labour are far, far higher in developed economies and the European Union than they are anywhere else in the world.

Source: ILO Report on Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced Labour.
Forced labour affects everyone. Even if you’re not a victim of forced labour, you’re still affected by it. Businesses, for example, face unfair competition from unscrupulous companies who reap the profits of forced labour. That may put pressure on them to lower wages or cut benefits. Meanwhile governments lose out on precious tax revenue while facing huge legal costs from prosecuting forced labour cases - money which could be spent on education, healthcare or social protection.

Want to know the situation of forced labour in your country? Check its dedicated profile on the Forced Labour Observatory.