Combating forced labour in the EU and the world: the role of the EU – the EESC's contribution to the 2014 ILO conference

The ILO Governing Body in March 2013 has decided to include a discussion on the adoption of a Protocol to complement the Convention on Forced Labour and labour trafficking at the International Labour Conference in June 2014. For the EESC, taking into account the existence of forced labour and trafficking in many European and third countries, an own initiative opinion would be a strong political signal to the EU institutions and to the Member States.

The contribution of the EESC with an own-initiative opinion to the ILO debate would have a double added-value:

• Give a strong, fast and high-level political signal of the commitment at European level to fight against forced labour efficiently following the recurrent discussion held on fundamental principles and rights at work.
• Provide guidance to European institutions to implement such measures of prevention (a field that remains insufficiently taken into account), protection and compensation in order to efficiently fight against forced labour.

The EESC opinion should be concise, centred on the need to complement Convention 29 by providing guidance to EU Member States on measures to be taken in the areas of prevention, protection and compensation of forced labour, including trafficking for labour exploitation. Such measures are in fact regularly recommended or underlined as efficient by the ILO supervisory bodies, but are not explicitly mentioned in the existing conventions, in particular in other regional instruments (EU).

A deliverable of this opinion should be the setting up of a platform, led by the EESC, which could interact with ILO and put forward the views of European civil society on the issue of forced labour, both within but also, and equally important, in third countries.