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

Forms of Slavery
45
Secretary-General to invite United Nations agencies and others “to pursue their investigation” into
allegations of this practice.
255
149. In 1996 the Commission on Human Rights called on the Secretary-General to examine, in
cooperation with relevant United Nations agencies, particularly WHO, and with INTERPOL “the
reliability of allegations regarding the removal of organs and tissues of children and adults for
commercial purposes”.
256
The Commission has urged States to strengthen existing laws or to
adopt new laws to punish those who knowingly participate in the traffic of organs, in particular
children’s organs.
257
150. By including “the removal of organs” within its definition of exploitation, the Trafficking
Protocol requires States to criminalize the removal of organs when carried out by means of the
threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, deception or fraud. In addition, the
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Pros-
titution and Child Pornography requires States to criminalize “offering, delivering or accepting, by
whatever means, a child for the purpose of . . . (b) Transfer of organs of the child for profit”.
4. Incest
151. Prior to 1993 incest had not been described as a form of slavery and did not explicitly fall
under the existing definitions of slavery or child servitude set out in international law. In May 1993
the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery addressed the issue and expressed concern
at the practice of incest and the sexual abuse of children inside the family, observing that this prac-
tice “is probably the most common, most widespread, most reprehensible, most disgraceful,
socially unacceptable, morally repugnant and spiritually harmful betrayal of children within the
whole array of contemporary forms of slavery”.
258
152. The Commission on Human Rights Programme of Action for the Prevention of the Sale of
Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, adopted in 1992, observes that “incest and
child abuse within the family . . . may lead to child prostitution”
259
and urges States to take legis-
lative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect children against all forms of
abuse while in the care of parents, family or others.
153. The Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery has considered incest on its agenda
as “another form of exploitation” but not necessarily as a contemporary form of slavery. Its draft
recommendations adopted at the end of its twenty-sixth session in 2001 expressed concern over
incest and other forms of child sexual abuse and exploitation, and the Working Group decided to
continue the consideration of ways to combat sexual abuse inside the family.
260
154. Incest is also a matter of concern to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, not as a form
of slavery but rather as a form of harmful child abuse contrary to the terms of the Convention on
the Rights of the Child. It is addressed under the criminal codes and social welfare legislation of
255
Report of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery on its nineteenth session, United Nations
document E/CN.4/Sub.2/1994/33, recommendation 2(b).
256
Commission on Human Rights resolution 1996/6; Report of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of
Slavery on its twenty-first session, United Nations document E/CN.4/Sub.2/1996/24.
257
Commission on Human Rights resolution 1996/61, supra note 256; Programme of Action on the Traffic in Per-
sons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, United Nations document E/CN.4/Sub.2/1995/28/Add.1, art. 28.
258
Report of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery on its eighteenth session, United Nations
document E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/30, p. 40. The wording used came directly from the testimony presented at that session
by a victim of incest.
259
Commission on Human Rights resolution 1992/74, United Nations document E/CN.4/Sub.2/1991/41,
para. 46.
260
Report of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery on its twenty-sixth session, United Nations
document E/CN.4.Sub.2/2001/30. The wording used came directly from the testimony presented at that session by a
victim of incest.

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