Background and Context – Sri Lanka

within forced labour. These indicators thus reflect a spectrum of actions that are exploitative in nature and include, abuse of vulnerability, deception, restriction of movement, isolation, physical and sexual violence, intimidation and threats, retention of identity documents, withholding of wages, debt bondage, abusive working and living conditions, and excessive overtime. These indicators therefore, offer a point of departure for researchers to better understand how trafficking and forced labour conditions may take place within international labour migration.

Background and Context – Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, given the relatively long history in outmigration for work purposes, there has been some degree of engagement with addressing concerns regarding forced labour and human trafficking. With regard to human trafficking per se, the GoSL has received continued technical support from the relevant UN agencies, including the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to either build new structures or revise/introduce policies and laws to strengthen existing mechanisms. A fundamental piece of legislation was the amendment to the Penal Code of Sri Lanka in 2006, which defines human trafficking (under section 360c) as

(1) Whoever—(a) buys, sells or barters or instigates another person to buy, sell or barter any person or does anything to promote, facilitate or induce the buying, selling or bartering of any person for money or other consideration; (b) recruits, transports, transfers, harbours or receives any person or does any other act by the use of threat, force, fraud, deception or inducement or by exploiting the vulnerability of another for the purpose of securing forced or compulsory labour or services, slavery, servitude, the removal of organs, prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation or any other act which constitutes an offence under any law.

Reflecting the severity of the crime of trafficking, a conviction carries penalties ranging from imprisonment for a term not less than two years and not exceeding twenty years and/or a fine. In terms of Sri Lanka’s global commitments, the GoSL ratified the Palermo Protocol in June 2015 and has also signed the “SAARC Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution”. Sri Lanka is an active member of the Bali Process that aims to support and strengthen practical cooperation on refugee protection and international migration including human trafficking and smuggling and other components of migration management in the Asia-Pacific region (Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, 2016, p. 17)

In terms of forced labour, Sri Lanka has ratified the ILO Convention on Forced Labour (1930) and the International Protocol P029 of 2014 to the Convention Concerning Forced or Compulsory Labour that came into effect in 2014. According to the ILO,

The Protocol and Recommendation bring ILO standards against forced labour into the modern era. The new Protocol establishes the obligations to prevent forced labour, protect victims and provide them with access to remedies, and emphasizes the link between forced labour and trafficking in persons. In line with Convention No. 29, the Protocol also reaffirms the importance of prosecuting the perpetrators of forced labour and ending their impunity (as quoted by Zeldin, 2016).

Along with the ratification of the Palermo Protocol, a National Anti-Trafficking Task Force has also been created. The Task Force aims to strengthen the co-ordination among key government stakeholders to increase prosecutions, and to improve the identification and protection of victims. The Task Force consists of 22 representatives from government institutions and is chaired by the Ministry of Justice. Some of the institutions involved in the Task Force include the SLBFE, Ministry of Foreign Employment (MFE), Ministry of Women and Child’s Affairs, Crimes Investigation Division of the Sri Lanka Police, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the Department of Labour, among several other government representatives. The SLBFE has also

set up a counter-trafficking desk at its head office and maintains both a hotline and a walk-in facility in order to support migrant workers claiming to have been trafficked.

Despite all these efforts, however, there are concerns regarding government regulations that may indirectly push migrant workers to be trafficked. The Family Background Report (FBR) has been cited by both the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report in 2018 and others as increasing the likelihood of women being trafficked.

The government maintained specific requirements for migration of female migrant workers including those migrating for domestic work, which observers stated increased the likelihood women would migrate illegally and therefore heightened their vulnerability to human trafficking (UNODC, 2018).

With several major efforts currently underway to address this key issue, the ILO Office for Sri Lanka and the Maldives commissioned the Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA) to carry out a scoping study to examine the presence (and the nature) of human trafficking and forced labour in the international labour migration process. The remainder of the report details the methodology, literature review, and the findings of the study. In light of the current scope of work being carried out to address human trafficking within the international labour migration process, it is expected that the findings will help better design and target prevention and protection efforts to counter trafficking and forced labour.

The forced labour indicators drawn up by the ILO on the basis of The Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), are more useful. Rather than viewing forced labour as an element arising out of human trafficking, human trafficking is embedded within forced labour. These indicators thus reflect a spectrum of actions that are exploitative in nature and include, abuse of vulnerability, deception, restriction of movement, isolation, physical and sexual violence, intimidation and threats, retention of identity documents, withholding of wages, debt bondage, abusive working and living conditions, and excessive overtime.