The Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women and Children was a permanent committee of the League of Nations (LN), inaugurated in 1921. It was the first permanent committee of the League of Nations to address the issue of sexual trafficking, at that point in time often termed as white slave trade.
After the end of the First World War, there was a need to ressume the campaign against the so-called white slave trade against the sexual exploitation and trafficking of women and children for sexual slavery, and international campaign which had started in the late 19th-century.
The Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women and Children was composed by delegates from nine countries as well as representatives of associated NGOs. The purpose was to collect and investigate the reports of human trafficking reported to it by the LN and the governments of their member countries.
The Committee created the International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children. [1]
The Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women and Children became a permanent body of the LN. It continued to investigate and filed reports about the enforcement of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children.
In 1924, it was divided in to the subdivided in to the Committee on the Traffic in Women and the Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People. [2]
Sexual slavery and sexual exploitation is an attachment of any ownership right over one or more people with the intent of coercing or otherwise forcing them to engage in sexual activities. This includes forced labor that results in sexual activity, forced marriage and sex trafficking, such as the sexual trafficking of children.
The Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others was approved by the United Nations General Assembly on 2 December 1949, and entered into force on 25 July 1951. The preamble states:
"Whereas prostitution and the accompanying evil of the traffic in persons for the purpose of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and endanger the welfare of the individual, the family, and the community"
Anti-Slavery International, founded as the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1839, is an international non-governmental organisation, registered charity and advocacy group, based in the United Kingdom. It is the world's oldest international human rights organisation, and works exclusively against slavery and related abuses.
The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children is a protocol to the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. It is one of the three Palermo protocols, the others being the Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air and the Protocol Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms.
Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the crime are called sex traffickers or pimps—people who manipulate victims to engage in various forms of commercial sex with paying customers. Sex traffickers use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and provide their victims as prostitutes. Sometimes victims are brought into a situation of dependency on their trafficker(s), financially or emotionally. Every aspect of sex trafficking is considered a crime, from acquisition to transportation and exploitation of victims. This includes any sexual exploitation of adults or minors, including child sex tourism (CST) and domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST).
The 1926 Slavery Convention or the Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery is an international treaty created under the auspices of the League of Nations and first signed on 25 September 1926. It was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on 9 March 1927, the same day it went into effect. The objective of the convention is to confirm and advance the suppression of slavery and the slave trade and was extended in 1956 with the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, under the auspices of the United Nations.
White slavery refers to the enslavement of any of the world's European ethnic groups throughout human history, whether perpetrated by non-Europeans or by other Europeans. Slavery in ancient Rome was frequently dependent on a person's socio-economic status and national affiliation, and thus included European slaves. It was also common for European people to be enslaved and traded in the Muslim world; European women, in particular, were highly sought-after to be concubines in the harems of many Muslim rulers. Examples of such slavery conducted in Islamic empires include the Arab slave trade, the Barbary slave trade, the Ottoman slave trade, and the Black Sea slave trade, among others.
Forced prostitution, also known as involuntary prostitution or compulsory prostitution, is prostitution or sexual slavery that takes place as a result of coercion by a third party. The terms "forced prostitution" or "enforced prostitution" appear in international and humanitarian conventions, such as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, but have been inconsistently applied. "Forced prostitution" refers to conditions of control over a person who is coerced by another to engage in sexual activity.
The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, officially designated as Republic Act No. 9208, is a consolidation of Senate Bill No. 2444 and House Bill No. 4432. It was enacted and passed by Congress of the Philippines' Senate of the Philippines and House of Representatives of the Philippines assembled on May 12, 2003, and signed into law by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on May 26, 2003. It institutes policies to eliminate and punish human trafficking, especially women and children, establishing the necessary institutional mechanisms for the protection and support of trafficked persons. It aims "to promote human dignity, protect the people from any threat of violence and exploitation, and mitigate pressures for involuntary migration and servitude of persons, not only to support trafficked persons but more importantly, to ensure their recovery, rehabilitation and reintegration into the mainstream of society."
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation.
The International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children is a 1921 multilateral treaty of the League of Nations that addressed the problem of international trafficking of women and children.
Slavery in international law is governed by a number of treaties, conventions and declarations. Foremost among these is the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948) that states in Article 4: “no one should be held in slavery or servitude, slavery in all of its forms should be eliminated.”
The International Agreement for the suppression of the White Slave Traffic is a series of anti–human trafficking treaties, specifically aimed at the illegal trade of white people, the first of which was first negotiated in Paris in 1904. It was one of the first multilateral treaties to address issues of slavery and human trafficking. The convention held that human trafficking was a punishable crime and that the 12 signatories should exchange information regarding human trafficking operations.
The International Abolitionist Federation, founded in Liverpool in 1875, aimed to abolish state regulation of prostitution and fought the international traffic in women in prostitution. It was originally called the British and Continental Federation for the Abolition of Prostitution.
Slavery in Yemen was formally abolished in the 1960s. However, it has been reported that enslavement still occurred in the 21st-century.
The history of sexual slavery in the United States is the history of slavery for the purpose of sexual exploitation as it exists in the United States.
Legal chattel slavery existed in the area which was later to become Oman from antiquity until the 1970s. Oman was united with Zanzibar from the 1690s until 1856, and was a significant center of the Indian Ocean slave trade from Zanzibar in East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and Iran, a central hub of the regional slave trade, which constituted a large part of its economy.
Slavery has existed in various forms throughout the history of Nigeria, notably during the Atlantic slave trade and Trans-Saharan trade. Slavery is now illegal internationally and in Nigeria. However, legality is often overlooked with different pre-existing cultural traditions, which view certain actions differently. In Nigeria, certain traditions and religious practices have led to "the inevitable overlap between cultural, traditional, and religious practices as well as national legislation in many African states" which has had the power to exert extra-legal control over many lives resulting in modern-day slavery. The most common forms of modern slavery in Nigeria are human trafficking and child labor. Because modern slavery is difficult to recognize, it has been difficult to combat this practice despite international and national efforts.
The Committee of Experts on Slavery (CES) was a temporary committee of the League of Nations (LN), inaugurated in 1932. The CES was created after a three year long campaign, with the purpose of investigating the efficiency of the 1926 Slavery Convention.