Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Abolishing Slavery and its Contemporary Forms

3. Sexual slavery
104. The concept of sexual slavery is closely related to that of forced prostitution but is a distinct
form of sexual exploitation. There does not have to be any financial gain in sexual slavery; it is
merely the imposition of absolute control or power of one person over another. It is the sexual
exploitation of individuals through the use or threat of force, often occurring in times of armed
conflict or belligerent occupation. Sexual slavery, occurring at any time, violates the fundamental
guarantees of basic human rights in the International Bill of Human Rights.
189
Mass Rape: The War Against Women in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Alexandra Stiglmayer (ed.), 1994; Beverly Allen,
Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia (1996). See also Prosecutor v. Dragoljub
Kunarac, Radomir Kovac, and Zoran Vukovic, International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, IT-96-23-T & IT-96-23/
1-T, 22 February 2001, infra note 199.
190
Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing), supra note 186, chap. 1, res. 1, annex II, para.
130(b).
191
In its resolution 1996/24, for example, it endorsed the conclusion reached at the Fourth World Conference on
Women in Beijing and asked Governments to adopt the practical proposals aimed at eliminating prostitution as it vio-
lates basic human rights. At the same session in 1996, the Commission approved the Programme of Action for the Pre-
vention of the Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, United Nations document E/CN.4/
Sub.2/1995/28/Add.1.
192
Convention on the Rights of the Child, supra note 156, art. 34.
193
Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, supra note 52, art. 3(b); see also section on Child Labour and Child
Servitude, infra.
194
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and
child pornography, supra note 150, art. 2(b); see also section on Trafficking and Children, supra.

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