Abolishing slavery and its contemporary forms

"At its seventy-sixth meeting, on 24 April 2001, the Commission on Human Rights recommended to the Economic and Social Council that 'the updated report submitted to the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights as documents E/CN.4/Sub.2/2000/3 and Add.1 be compiled into a single report, printed in all official languages and given the widest possible distribution'. This document responds to that invitation, provides a further update on the Awad and Whitaker studies, and summarizes the core international law against slavery: its origins and the progress of the international campaign to abolish the slave trade and slavery, the legal instruments and institutions that have been established to combat slavery (including the United Nations Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery), the evolving definition of slavery, contemporary forms of slavery, and other related practices. It then focuses briefly on serfdom, forced labour, debt bondage, migrant workers, trafficking in persons, prostitution, forced marriage, the sale of wives and other issues, before discussing international monitoring mechanisms. The review ends with tentative conclusions and recommendations."--Introd.