Making children locked in their homes work is a form of slavery

The CN and V. v. France case of October 11, 2012 concerns two sisters from Burundi who arrived in France in 1995 and were entrusted to a member of their immediate family, as they were minors at the time of the events. As soon as they arrived, their host family lodged them in the basement of the house and forced them to take care of all household and domestic chores and behaved towards them in a disrespectful manner. Alerted, the social services conducted an investigation into their case and the couple who reduced them to slavery was sentenced in 2007 by the Nantes criminal court. However, the Versailles Court of Appeal acquitted the husband and sentenced the wife to a criminal fine of 1500 euros and to pay a symbolic 1 euro to the victims as damages and interest in reparation for moral damage. The appeal in cassation of the plaintiffs having been rejected, they seized the European Court. First of all, it notes that it was essentially the first applicant, who had no schooling, who was forced to work tirelessly and perform all kinds of household chores.  ; the second being educated helped her sister only occasionally. Thus, it should be noted that only the first applicant can complain under Article 4 of the Convention. The Court observes that "  servitude constitutes a special qualification of forced or compulsory labor or, in other words, forced or compulsory labour”  worsen  ". In this case, the fundamental element which distinguishes servitude from forced or compulsory labour, within the meaning of Article 4 of the Convention, is the feeling of the victims that their condition is immutable and that the situation is not likely to change. 'to evolve. In this respect, it is sufficient that this feeling is based on objective elements aroused or maintained by the perpetrators of the acts  ". Consequently, given that the first applicant believed that she was dependent on her host family and was afraid of being sent back to her country if she did not obey them, it must be concluded that she was kept in servitude. For its part, the Respondent State had, on the one hand, a positive obligation to investigate the facts effectively and, on the other hand, to punish those responsible for these actions. Thus, there has been a violation of Article 4 of the Convention.

The CN v Rauyame-Uni case of 13 October 2013 was brought by a Ugandan woman who arrived in the United Kingdom in 2002 with the help of her cousin who provided her with false documents. She found a job with a couple who forced her to work day and night and her salary was paid to an intermediary who had found this work for her, who paid her a percentage. She filed a complaint with the police for slavery and forced labor, but the case was dismissed. All her appeals having failed at national level, the applicant turned to the European Court, invoking Article 4 of the Convention. The Court finds that the British law which was in force at the time did not allow servitude or slavery to be punished directly, but rather related criminal offences. Accordingly, in the absence of a law making servitude and slavery a criminal offence, no weight was given to the applicant's allegations. Accordingly, there has been a violation of Article 4.