Wartime slavery in

the twentieth
century
  Slavery – common features of armed
conflicts
 Wartime slavery – enslavement
occurred in consequence of

Introduction war/armed conflict

 Scope
• Sexual slavery/comfort women
• Labour camps/concentration
camps
 Sexual Slavery

On the Far East front, the Japanese military forced between 50,000 and 200,000
women and girls, primarily of Korean, Chinese or Philippine origin, into sexual
slavery and forced prostitution (Sarah Soh, 2001). ​
They were often referred to as ‘comfort women’.
I
 Sexual slavery is a slavery, and its prohibition is a jus

Is 'sexual cogens norm

"UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights, Special
Rapporteur on the Situation of Systematic Rape,

slavery' a form Sexual Slavery and Slavery-like Practices during

Wartime"

of 'slavery'
Causes of Violence
- Male attempt to dominate and subjugate the female.
- Humiliate the enemy.
-Act to socialize military recruits and to separate recruits from civilian –
brutalization to harden soldiers for battle and to bond men with another.
-Means of asserting and marking boundaries between ethnic groups, reinforcing the
tension.
-Tactical weapon to intimidate and terrorize the enemy population.
-Punishment to women who may be close to enemy leading figure.
- Political Rape
Haiti – wife and daughter of dissident political leaders were
systematically raped.
East Timor – Wives and Relatives of suspected guerrilla leaders
- Women Prisoner
Rape used as means of interrogation.
Whether -“comfort women”
during the WWII are slaves
 Report considers the practice of “comfort women” to be a case of sexual slavery.
 Japan, on the other hand, maintains that the definition of slavery does not apply
to the treatment of the women in question.
UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Systematic
Rape, Sexual Slavery and Slavery-like Practices during Wartime, Final report
 Rome Statute on the International Criminal
Court 1998 (ICC Statute) codifies enslavement
and sexual slavery as crimes against humanity.
• Article 8(2)(b)(xxii) and (e)(vi) .
• Sexual slavery defined as the exercise of “any or all of the
powers attaching to the right of ownership over one or more
Criminalization of persons, such as by purchasing, selling, lending or bartering
such a person or persons, or by imposing on them a similar
Sexual Slavery & deprivation of liberty” combined with the causing of such
person or persons “to engage in one or more acts of a sexual
nature”
Definition • deprivation of liberty include
• exacting forced labour or otherwise reducing a person
to servile status” as defined in the Supplementary
Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave
Trade, and Institutions and Practices similar to Slavery
• trafficking in persons, in particular women and
children.
 sets out enslavement as a crime against
humanity that entails the “right of
ownership over a person and includes the

Article 7(2)(c) exercise of such power in the course of

trafficking in persons, in particular
women and children.”

of the Rome provides that trafficking is inseparable

from the bundle of acts of enslavement,
specifically the slave trade

Statute
The crime of sexual slavery requires
factual proof of at least one act of sexual
violence such that all subsequent slavery
conduct is included within the charge of
sexual slavery.
The ICC elements of the crime against
humanity of sexual slavery
(1) The perpetrator exercised any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership over one or
more persons, such as by purchasing, selling, lending or bartering such a person or persons, or by
imposing on them a similar deprivation of liberty.
(2) The perpetrator caused such person or persons to engage in one or more acts of a sexual nature.
(3) The conduct was committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a
civilian population.
(4) The perpetrator knew that the conduct was part of or intended the conduct to be part of a
widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population.
Rome Statute Elements of Crimes art. 7(1)(g)– 2, ICC-ASP/1/3 at 108, U.N. Doc. PCNICC/2000/1/Add.2
(2000).
LABOUR CAMPS/ CONCENTRATION CAMPS
Overview
 Forced labour, also called Slave Labour, labour performed involuntarily and
under duress, usually by relatively large groups of people.
 It was a peculiarly prominent feature of the totalitarian
regimes of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
 Persons either suspected of opposition or considered racially or nationally unfit
were summarily arrested
 They were placed under long or indefinite terms of confinement in concentration
camps, remote labour colonies, or industrial camps and forced to work, usually
under harsh conditions.
The Nazi Party’s rise to power in Germany during the 1930s.
extensive use of concentration camps to confine classes of persons who
were opposed to the regime or who were otherwise undesirable.
World War II - demand for labour in Germany,
Nazi authorities turned to the concentration-camp population to augment the labour
supply.
By the end of 1944 2 million prisoners of war - had been put to work
in German arms factories, chemical plants, mines, farms, and lumber operations.
Other Instances of Force
Labour/concentration camps
 In 1923 the Soviet secret police established a concentration
camp on Solovetski Island in the White Sea in which political prisoners were
first used extensively for forced labour.
 Japan during World War II – death railway
 The communist government of China at times from the 1950s to the 1970s.
 The Khmer Rouge regime (1975–79) of Cambodia made a particularly
widespread and brutal use of forced labour.
In 1957 the ILO adopted a resolution that condemned the use of forced labour
throughout the world.
The convention was ratified by 91 member nations.
Forced labour continues to be used by a few authoritarian and totalitarian
governments on a relatively small scale.
(234) Sex slaves from World War II - YouTube
(234) NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS - YouTube
(234) Memory of the Camps (full film) | FRONTLINE - YouTube
Sexual
Slavery
https://youtu.be/kfTFt-CFU3E
https://youtu.be/GIC481VxVlE