T n eR atio er d ed o nf o C n Ip nio U U CC e d a e Tr UUg nal R atio11 n0 ITIT ITUC, InterFebruary 2 g REUTERS Never work alone Trade Unions and NGOs joining forces to combat Forced Labour and Trafficking in Europe The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) represents 176 million workers, 40 per cent of whom are women, in 151 countries and territories and has 301 national affiliates. The ITUC is a confederation of national trade union centres, each of which links together the trade unions of that particular country. Membership is open to all democratic, inde- pendent and representative national trade union centres. The ITUC’s primary mission is the promotion and defence of workers’ rights and inter- ests, through international cooperation between trade unions, global campaigning and advocacy within major global institutions. Its main areas of activity include trade union and human rights, the economy, society and the workplace, equality and non-discrim- ination as well as international solidarity. The ITUC adheres to the principles of trade union democracy and independence, as set out in its Constitution. _ ITUC 5 Boulevard du Roi Albert II, Bte 1 1210 Brussels Belgium Phone: +32 (0)2 224 0211 Fax: +32 (0)2 201 5815 E-mail: mailto:[email protected] www.ituc-csi.org Anti-Slavery International, founded in 1839, is committed to eliminating all forms of slav- ery throughout the world. Slavery, servitude and forced labour are violations of individual freedoms, which deny millions of people their basic dignity and fundamental human rights. Anti-Slavery International works to end these abuses by exposing current cases of slavery, campaigning for its eradication, supporting the initiatives of local organisations to release people, and pressing for more effective implementation of laws against slavery. _ Anti-Slavery International Thomas Clarkson House, The Stableyard Broomgrove Road London SW9 9TL Phone: +44 (0)20 7501 8920 Fax: +44 (0)20 7738 4110 E-mail: [email protected] www.antislavery.org Never work alone Trade Unions and NGOs joining forces to combat Forced Labour and Trafficking in Europe Acknowledgements: Anti-Slavery International and International Trade Union Confederation wish to thank to all those who have contributed to this publication, and to affiliates and partners for their invaluable contributions by sharing their experiences and strategies. In particular, we would like to thank Klara Skrivankova (Anti-Slavery International) and Jeroen Beirnaert (International Trade Union Confederation) for putting this publication together. Special thanks also to Lucy Gregg, who carried out the research for this project at Anti-Slavery International and to Monika Kalinowska, a volunteer at Anti-Slavery International. Many thanks also to PICUM for collecting much of the information referenced. Anti-Slavery International and the International Trade Union Confederation would like to thank the European Commission for funding this project. The views expressed herein are those of Anti-Slavery International and the International Trade Union Confederation and in no way reflect the opinion of the funder. Contents Foreword 7 I. What is the problem we are dealing with 9 II. Approaches and perspectives to combating human trafficking 10 III. Differences in perspectives 12 1. Language 12 2. Mission or mandate 14 3. Structures 15 4. Members, beneficiaries and constituencies 19 5. Overview 21 IV. Identifying common ground 21 1. Organising and outreach 22 2. Intervention and assistance 26 Case study 1: 600 Serbian workers in forced labour in Azerbaijan 26 Case study 2: Moroccan worker trafficked to Belgium 27 Case study 3: 430 Brazilian domestic workers trafficked in Belgium 28 Case study 4: 58 Thai migrant workers trafficked to Poland 30 Case study 5: Serbian metal worker trafficked to Germany 31 3. Campaigning for Change 32 4. Training and education 35 5. Setting an example 37 V. Conclusion 39 Anexes 41 5 Good practice examples • C Criminalisation of forced labour in Ireland, 34 • G Global Campaign for Decent Work and Rights for Domestic Workers, 32 • J Joint Action Plan to follow-up on the Serbaz case, 33 • M MigrAr, the German Trade Union Centre for Undocumented Migrants, 25 • P Partnership between ITUC and Anti-Slavery International, 38 • S SIT and the Collectif de Soutien aux Sans-papiers in Geneva, 22 • T The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), 23 The Swedish Trade Union Centre for Undocumented Migrant Workers, 25 • U UK Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Citizen’s Advice Bureaus (CAB), 24 UK Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Migrant Workers North West (MWNW), 23 Unique alliance to combat trafficking in southern Italy, 30 6 Foreword Dear friends, The impact of the current economic crisis on working people and their families, a result of financial and political decisions made far from the worksites of the majority, is but magnified for migrant workers and others forced to migrate from their homes in search of work. In times of crisis, social movements are traditionally even more challenged. Under the current pressure of a globalised economic crisis, social protection is under threat everywhere, and those most vulnerable are those people who have never had access to social protection. Lack of decent jobs pushes migrant workers to look for opportunities outside their home countries. When they arrive, in the countries of destination, they are often confronted with xenophobia from those who fear that the few jobs available will be taken by new immigrants. Often, the responses of politicians to such manifestations of xenophobia are tighter restrictions on migration. At the same time, governments desire to boost their economies to be more competitive, by banking on decreasing labour costs and importing cheap and more compliant labour. These dynamics mark the contemporary globalised labour market and are major contributory factors to the growth of a phenomenon we can only describe as modern day slavery, not in its traditional forms, but evident in supply chains of products and services we, as consumers, all use. In Europe, there have been alarming reports of abuse of migrants from all parts of the world working in conditions of forced labour. Trafficking of workers is big business. It is the modern day slave trade. Civil society groups have been active in the fight against human trafficking since the 1990s. Yet, for trade unions, the issue has become a concern more recently, as increasing evidence emerges of trafficking for forced labour in the private economy. To address this emerging scourge, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) adopted a framework of action for the Global Trade Union Alliance to Combat Forced Labour and Trafficking in 2007.1 Later, on a regional level a Declaration was adopted by the participants of the International Trade Union Conference on Combating Forced Labour and Human Trafficking organised jointly by the ITUC- PERC, the ETUC and the GSEE in Athens on 21-23 November 2008.2 The international trade union and the anti-slavery movements, however, have a long history of cooperation, jointly working on combating and advocating against traditional slavery practices such as bonded labour and forced prison labour. Formally joining the ILO’s Special Action Plan to eradicate forced labour by 2015 in 2007, the ITUC strengthened its ties through a Memorandum of Understanding with Anti-Slavery International to share expertise and experience and develop cooperation even further.3 The need to join forces to address the vicious trend of forced labour in industrialised countries as a result of trafficking of migrant workers, led to the proposal of a 1 http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/3GC_E_15_a__-_Forced_Labour.pdf for a map of the global alliance http://www. ituc-csi.org/map-workers-alliance-against.html Annex 1 2 Pan-European Regional Council (national trade union centres from Ireland to the Russian Federation), European Trade Union Confederation (national trade union centres from EU countries) and the General Confederation of Greek Workers; http://www.ilo.org/sapfl/Events/NonILOevents/lang--en/WCMS_100999/index.htm Annex 2 3 http://www.ituc-csi.org/memorandum-of-understanding.html?lang=en 7 two- year project entitled “Creating a European coalition of trade unions and NGOs to prevent violence and protect women and young people in the workplace, with a specific focus on trafficking”4 - an attempt to better address these new and challenging forms of extreme abuse of workers, by bringing trade unions and NGOs closer together. The project started from the premise that while unions have extensive experience and expertise in promoting and protecting labour rights, specialised NGOs have also built up decades of experience in combating trafficking. Very rarely, however, have these two networks cooperated to address the symptoms and the causes of trafficking and forced labour on a national level. Therefore, the project intends to create a space to strengthen the links between trade unions and NGOs and identify the barriers and opportunities for joint work. In many cases we have found that lack of awareness of strategies and activities or different ways of working were the main obstacles for building broad national coalitions on workers’ rights, trafficking or related issues. The ITUC-Anti-Slavery project provides the opportunity for organisations to meet, discuss where such structural cooperation would be possible and desirable and begin the process of coalition/alliance building. This booklet is the project publication which reflects the lessons learned from the project and offers some answers to questions raised by trade unions and NGOs in the course of this work. It is the first joint trade union-NGO attempt to bridge the gaps, dispelling some of the myths about the functions of both bodies and bring concrete examples of how NGOs and trade unions have, and can join forces, to deal with trafficking and forced labour across Europe. By no means will the text provide a ready template for NGO-trade union cooperation. Generalisations needed to be made and not all arguments will apply to all political or local organisational contexts. Rather, this report seeks to provide an overview of different possibilities for cooperation. The project and therefore this booklet focuses exclusively on cooperation between trade unions and NGOs in fighting labour trafficking and does not do justice to all the hard work done by many organisations to combat forced labour and trafficking outside this narrow framework, alongside external partnerships or in partnership with other stakeholders. Practices have been grouped in four areas of activities. This division is neither exhaustive, nor can all practices be categorised in one of these areas. Where there is cooperation between unions and NGOs, the work usually covers several of the subdivided areas. Especially when a certain level of mutual understanding, trust, respect and support for each other’s work has grown between partners, there can be effective cooperation. We hope this publication will contribute to generating fresh discussions within organisations and with others and that it will inspire and encourage others to join the alliance to eradicate modern day slavery. There is important work to be done. Sharan Burrow Aidan Mc Quade General Secretary Director International Trade Union Confederation Anti-Slavery International 4 Funded by the European Commission 8 I. What is the problem we are dealing with In 2005 the International Labour Organisation (ILO) came up with a global estimate of 12.3 million people in forced labour at any given time. A geographical breakdown of this minimum number indicates that for industrialised countries, including Europe, of the 360,000 workers in forced labour, 270,000 ended up being exploited as a result of a trafficking process.5 Most of the people affected by slavery practices are women migrant workers and especially vulnerable are those who are undocumented. The vast majority are to be found in under- or unregulated economic activities such as domestic work, agriculture, construction, restaurants, hotels and catering and prostitution and sexual exploitation. Commonly, it is migrants in Europe who are brought into exploitation through subtle forms of deception and coercion via formal or less formal recruitment agents and middlemen. Migrant workers often borrow large amounts of money to pay the trafficker for arranging transport, travel documents and a fee for securing a job expecting future returns. If the job they finally receive upon destination does not enable them to repay the loan, let alone to further support their family and community at home, they become trapped by huge debts and no money to return. Debts can be further exacerbated through inflated charges for basic accommodation and food which is deducted from their salary leading them into debt bondage to their employer or recruiter. Another frequently used means of coercion is abuse of the precarious residence status of migrant workers. When migrants’ residence status is tied to an employer or employment with no legal or practical possibility to change employment, workers cannot complain about or act upon their situation out of fear of being denounced and repatriated without compensation for unpaid work or other abuses suffered. These vulnerabilities are often exploited in combination with violence, threats and intimidation. In addition, domestic, restaurant and agricultural workers are vulnerable to physical isolation preventing them from reaching out for support. Human trafficking is a process of bringing someone into a situation of exploitation, a series of actions with the final purpose being a form of exploitation (such as forced labour). There are three constitutive elements of trafficking6 and various forms of coercion are included. The whole process is exploitative, although this is not always evident, especially at the initial stages of the process.7 Forced labour means maintaining someone in a situation where services or work are exacted under menace of penalty to which a person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily. Indicators of forced labour [Threats of or actual physical or sexual violence; restriction of movement and confinement, to the workplace or to a limited area; debt bondage: where a worker works to pay off debt or loan, and 5 Belser P. and de Cock M: ILO Minimum Estimate of Forced Labour in the World, ILO, 2005, Geneva. 6 The three elements of trafficking of adults, based on the definition of the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, are: acts, means, purpose. Trafficking in persons is: the action of recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of persons; by means of the threat or use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or vulnerability, or giving payments or benefits to a person in control of the victim; for the purposes of exploitation, which includes exploiting the prostitution of others, sexual exploitation, forced labour, slavery or similar practices, and the removal of organs. 7 Skrivankova, K: Between decent work and forced labour: examining the continuum of exploitation: Joseph Rowntree Foundation Programme Paper, 2010, York. 9 is not paid for his or her services; withholding of wages, refusing to pay the worker at all or excessive wage reductions; retention of passports and identity documents; threat of denunciation to the authorities] describe situations and conditions people commonly find themselves in and that the ILO and others recognise as identifying situations of forced labour. Although not every single indicator signifies forced labour, their concentration (usually two or more) suggest a situation of forced labour. Furthermore, they can be both indications of a trafficking and non-trafficking situation. While forced labour is a criminal offence, it is also an outcome of the imbalance of power, poor regulation of labour markets and inadequate enforcement of labour rights. Consequently, those who are subject to forced labour should be seen as workers whose fundamental rights (including labour rights) have been violated, be treated as claimants of rights and be able to access criminal justice as well as labour justice.8 The ITUC Action Plan for a Global Trade Union Alliance to Combat Forced Labour and Trafficking calls for increased action to counter abuse at all stages of a trafficking process e.g. to reach out to vulnerable migrants both in origin and destination countries, call for rights based migration policies, regulation and monitoring of recruitment, more effective labour inspection and access to justice. The alliance is a platform for closer cooperation on this issue between trade unions with other stakeholders, including NGOs.9 II. Approaches and perspectives to combating human trafficking Both trade unions and many NGOs are likely to come across cases of forced labour and trafficking. At the same time, both are well-placed to contribute to strategies which will help eliminate forced labour and trafficking by tailoring their involvement to deploy their particular areas of expertise, capacity and available resources. Still, many of the participants of our project have expressed concern at the lack of cooperation or even interest of trade unions to engage with the issue of trafficking. The assessment we carried out among some 50 trade unionists and NGO workers revealed that the differences in operation, mandate and language used to describe the same social phenomena are among the key barriers preventing NGOs and trade unions from working together. This chapter provides an overview of how NGOs and trade unions work and concludes that in fact there are more commonalities than differences between the two. NGOs that work on trafficking and related issues vary in size but tend to be very small with 10 to 15 personnel on average in any one branch. NGOs have developed 8 ibid 9 For more information, please refer to the ITUC Mini Action Guide on Forced Labour http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ guide_forced_labour_EN.pdf and the ITUC Best Practice Guide on How to Combat Forced Labour and Trafficking http:// www.ituc-csi.org/ituc-guide-how-to-combat-forced.html 10