Committee: Human Rights

Topic: Combating modern slavery

Chair Members

Moderator: Maximiliano Velázquez Larreynaga

Secretary: Andrea Reyes Flores

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Dear delegates,

The Moderator and the Secretary of Human Rights welcomes you to the 9th edition of the
Model of the United Nations Colegio Pedregal. We are grateful that you can be part of this
model and we would like to invite you to participate actively during the sessions in order to
obtain the best viable solution to the present matter, always in a peaceful, respectful and
diplomatic way. We hope that the following background will be helpful for you during your
participation during the model.

Human Rights

The Human Rights is the leading organ of the United Nations on human rights. This entity
is responsible of the promotion and protection of the human rights and freedoms
established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on a full range, giving priority to
address situations with the most pressing human rights violations, that could put people´s
lives in danger or in vulnerable circumstances.

Useful definitions

 Human trafficking: When people are moved around or outside a country to be

forced to work or do things against their will.
 Forced labour: Compelling someone to work by the use of physical or
psychological threats, the abuse of legal procedures or any other coercive means.
 Debt bondage: When a person inherited a loan or a debt that the laborer is rarely
able to repay because of the interest and is offered to labor to pay it off.
  Exploitation: A situation where someone use another person unfairly in order to
obtain something from it.
 Sexual exploitation: When a person is forced to perform nonconsensual sex acts
with commercial purposes.
 Descent-based slavery: Situation in which people are born into slavery.
 Child slavery: Any circumstances where children are: exploited to slavery practices,
forced into recruitment for arm conflicts, prostituted, offered for illegal activities or
forced into any work that can harm them physically or psychologically.
 Forced marriage: Any situation in which a person, regardless of their age, is being
forced into a union without their consent.
 Domestic servitude: When a domestic worker cannot leave freely their employment
and suffers several forms of abuse, such as harassments or exploitation.

Introduction

Slavery was the first violation of the human rights that caused a international concern and
that still continues today as a persistent problem. Modern slavery, also known as
contemporary forms of slavery, are when someone is being exploited by others for personal
or commercial proposes and that causes a loss of their freedom, by being tricked, coerced
or forced. It includes, without being limited to, human trafficking, forced labour, traditional
slavery, domestic servitude, sexual slavery, child slavery, forced marriage and debt
bondage.

According to the last year Global Estimates of Modern Slavery from Walk Free, the ILO
and the International Organization for Migration, 49.6 million people live in modern
slavery, especially in forced labour and marriage and roughly a quarter of this victims are
children. Of the 27.6 million people suffering from forced labour, 17.3 million are
exploited in the private economy, 6.3 million suffer sexual exploitation for commercial
gains and almost 4 million are forced labour by state authorities.

Ongoing conflicts, political instability, industrial transformations, climate change, gender

discrimination, poverty and migration increase the vulnerability of a lot of people and work
as key drivers to this conflict. In order to combat and prevent this issue it its fundamental to
address these factors.

Historical Background

Historians cannot tell the exact period when slavery origins, but it is believed that started
roughly 11,000 years ago. In ancient times, slavery was a practice that resulted from debts,
child abandonments, being birth in a slave family, war or as a punishment for crime. But
according to different historical texts, these slaves had better lives than peasants in that era.
It was until the Middle Ages that this practice changes drastically as a consequence of
conquests across continents. At this point, people of the conquered lands were taken as
slaves in order to be put to work for their captors.

It was during the reign of the King Charlemagne, a period that went through war and
violence, that involved taking slaves and selling them. Throughout this period, European
slaves became popular in the Muslim countries and within the Vikings, which is considered
the point where the global slave trade truly began. Additionally, during this time the Holy
War was taking place, which led into women and children being take as slaves. As well,
slavery was also taking roots in Asia as a result of the Islamic invasions of India, which
resulted in the capture and enslaving of around 100,000 children and young people. In
China, the Tang Dynasty purchased European and Jewish slaves, along slaves in raids of
Korea, Turkey, Persia and Indonesia.

In the Americas, the first slaves were brought from Africa to Jamestown in 1616 by the
British colonists. 60 years later African slaves were really popular along the British
Colonies, but the majority of slaves were concentrated in the Caribbean to work in
plantations to produce sugar and coffee. In addition, many slaves were sold to people in
Brazil and the Spanish Americas for field and household works.

Even though, abolitionists movements, that aimed to put an end to this practices, appear
along the history. The first attempts to eradicate slavery as a practice took place in Western
Europe around 1500, but did not make any changes. The next steps were in order to end the
slave trade globally, in which some slavers who were caught transporting slaves across the
ocean were stopped and the slaves were freed. But there were still a lot of slaves in the
Americas.

It was during the American Civil War that the abolition of slavery was taken more into
consideration. The Southern states were centered in preserving slavery, while the Northern
Union looked forward to ending with it. But it was until 1865 that slaves in the Americas
were formally freed. Even though that slaves were formally freed, the battle for racial
equality is still ongoing till today and even after the hard work of the abolitionist
movements, slavery did not end in the 19th century. And this continuing problem is what is
now known as modern slavery.

Important Country´s Actions

There are several countries that have launched different operations to be able to put an end
to this problem; however, countries mainly from the Middle East have continued to
exercise these actions. Various alternatives and options have been proposed that can put an
end to this problem. These proposals are mainly promoted by the United Kingdom and the
United States, these countries being the main ones in combating this conflict. The report
ranks 188 countries on their effectiveness in combating human trafficking. The report also
places each country on one of four lists based on the extent to which they meet the
“minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking”, as described in the Law on the
Protection of Victims of Trafficking in Persons. Modern countries are fighting human
trafficking with legislation that makes it harder to use and profit from forced labour.
Modern slavery acts in the United Kingdom, United States, and other countries around the
world require large companies to disclose information regarding their efforts to eradicate
human trafficking and slavery within their supply chains. The legislation also requires
companies to take concrete steps to combat modern slavery when it is discovered. 

The growth of the problem is spurring more countries to take action. Canada and New
Zealand are among the countries expected to approve modern slavery acts in the coming
months. And in the UK, where the Modern Slavery Act legislated in 2015 is seen as the
most comprehensive such legislation in the world, the Queen’s Speech recently proposed
changes to make it even tougher. The proposed bill would further strengthen the protection
and support for victims of modern slavery and increase the responsibility of organisations
to eradicate modern slavery from their supply chains.

OHCHR and UN Actions

Latest estimates by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) show that forced labour and
forced marriage have increased significantly in the last five years. 10 million more people were
in modern slavery in 2021 compared to 2016 global estimates, bringing the total to 50 million
worldwide. Women and children remain disproportionately vulnerable.

Although modern slavery is not defined in law, it is used as an umbrella term covering practices
such as forced labour, debt bondage, forced marriage, and human trafficking. Essentially, it
refers to situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats,
violence, coercion, deception, and/or abuse of power.

Modern slavery occurs in almost every country in the world, and cuts across ethnic, cultural and
religious lines. More than half (52 per cent) of all forced labour and a quarter of all forced
marriages can be found in upper-middle income or high-income countries.

ILO has adopted a legally binding Protocol designed to strengthen global efforts to eliminate
forced labour, which entered into force in November 2016.

 Main Forms of Modern Slavery

Slavery has evolved and manifested itself in different ways throughout history. Today some
traditional forms of slavery still persist in their earlier forms, while others have been transformed
into new ones. The UN human rights bodies have documented the persistence of old forms of
slavery that are embedded in traditional beliefs and customs. These forms of slavery are the
result of long-standing discrimination against the most vulnerable groups in societies, such as
those regarded as being of low caste, tribal minorities and indigenous peoples.
  Forced labour

Alongside traditional forms of forced labour, such as bonded labour and debt bondage there now
exist more contemporary forms of forced labour, such as migrant workers, who have been
trafficked for economic exploitation of every kind in the world economy: work in domestic
servitude, the construction industry, the food and garment industry, the agricultural sector and in
forced prostitution.

 Child labour

Globally, one in ten children works. The majority of the child labour that occurs today is for
economic exploitation. That goes against the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which
recognizes “the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from
performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or
to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.”

 Trafficking

According to the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially

Women and Children, trafficking in persons means the recruitment, transportation, transfer,
harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of
coercion for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation includes 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. The consent of the person trafficked for exploitation is
irrelevant and If the trafficked person is a child, it is a crime even without the use of force.

References

1. OHCHR. (s. f.). OHCHR | About UN Human Rights. https://www.ohchr.org/en/about-

us
2. Anti-Slavery International. (2022, 26 October). What is modern slavery?

https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/modern-slavery/

3. Human trafficking. (s. f.). Metropolitan police UK.

https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/ms/human-trafficking/

4. What is Modern Slavery? (s. f.). U. S. Department of State. https://www.state.gov/what-

is-modern-slavery/

5. Modern Slavery: Its Root Causes and the Human Toll. (s. f.). Council on Foreign

Relations. https://www.cfr.org/modern-slavery

6. Cambridge Dictionary. (2023). exploitation, definition, what is s exploitation: 1. the use

of something in order to get an advantage from it: 2. the act of using someone

unfairly. . .. Learn more.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/es/diccionario/ingles/exploitation

7. Anti-Slavery International. (2022b, noviembre 24). Descent-based slavery.

https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/descent-based-slavery/

8. What is modern slavery? (s. f.). Walk Free. https://www.walkfree.org/what-is-modern-

slavery/

9. OHCHR. (s. f.-b). OHCHR | Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-slavery

10. Iddings, E. (2019, 29 enero). The History of Slavery. Restavek Freedom.

https://restavekfreedom.org/2018/09/11/the-history-of-slavery/