Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2016, published 106th ILC session (2017)

Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29) - Syrian Arab Republic (Ratification: 1960)

Articles 1(1), 2(1) and 25 of the Convention. Situations of forced labour arising from the armed conflict. Trafficking and sexual slavery. The Committee notes that the Government’s report has not been received. The Committee notes that, with reference to several reports of the United Nations agencies, cases of the abduction of women and children with a view to their sexual exploitation have been reported. In this regard, the Committee notes the report submitted by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic to the UN Human Rights Council, in June 2016, according to which anti-Government armed groups have targeted women and girls on the basis of their gender and religious beliefs, to be sold to individual fighters as sexual slaves. These include Yazidi women who have been sold to Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham (ISIS) fighters in ISIS-controlled Syrian Arab Republic. These women are imprisoned in towns and villages across the Syrian Arab Republic, where they are held in sexual slavery. The Committee also notes that according to the Commission of Inquiry, ISIS fighters, regularly force Yazidi women and girls to work in the fighters’ houses. Many of those interviewed recounted being forced to be domestic servants of the fighters. In addition, boys and men were forced to labour on ISIS projects, including construction and cleaning work, digging trenches and looking after cattle (A/HRC/32/CRP.2, paragraphs 54–126).

While acknowledging the complexity of the situation on the ground and the presence of armed groups and armed conflict in the country, the Committee once again urges the Government to take the necessary measures to put an immediate stop to these practices which constitute a serious violation of the Convention and to guarantee that the victims are fully protected from such abusive practices. The Committee recalls that it is crucial that appropriate criminal penalties are imposed on perpetrators so that recourse to trafficking or sexual slavery does not go unpunished. The Committee urges the Government to take immediate and effective measures in this respect, and to provide information on the results achieved.

The Committee is raising other matters in a request addressed directly to the Government.