The International Labour Organization (ILO) operationalized the definition of adult forced labour in its 2012 guidance document, “Hard to see, harder to count – Survey guidelines to estimate forced labour of adults and children”:
“Forced labour of adults is defined, for the purpose of these guidelines, as work for which a person has not offered him or herself voluntarily (concept of “involuntariness”) and which is performed under the menace of any penalty (concept of “coercion”) applied by an employer or a third party to the worker. The coercion may take place during the worker’s recruitment process to force him or her to accept the job or, once the person is working, to force him/her to do tasks which were not part of what was agreed at the time of recruitment of to prevent him/her from leaving the job.”
The operational definition of forced labour can be split into the four principal dimensions:
Examples of (4) penalty or menace of penalty include the following means of coercion:
- Un-free recruitment
- Work and life under duress
- Impossibility of leaving an employer
- Penalty or menace of penalty
Examples of (4) penalty or menace of penalty include the following means of coercion:
- Threats and violence
- Restriction of workers’ freedom of movement
- Debt bondage
- Withholding of wages
- Retention of passport or documents
- Abuse of vulnerability
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Authored by
International Cocoa Initiative (ICI)
NGO Professional
References
“Child Labour & Forced Labour: A glossary of definitions,” International Cocoa Initiative, February 1, 2022
“Hard to see, harder to count – Survey guidelines to estimate forced labour of adults and children,” International Labour Organization, June 1, 2012
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