Domestic Slavery

The applicant, who was born to a mother in slavery, was sold to a local chief at age 12. For the next nine years she was subjected to rape, violence, and forced labour without remuneration. When Niger’s Supreme Court failed to convict her "owner" under Article 270.1-5 of the Nigerien Criminal Code, which made slavery illegal in 2003, the applicant brought her case before the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice under Article 9(4) of the Supplementary Protocol A/SP.1/01/05. The court ruled that the applicant had been a slave under the definition in Article 1 (I) of the Slavery Convention of 1926 and that in failing to convict her former "owner," Niger had not upheld its legal responsibility to protect her from slavery under international law. This case was the first ECOWAS ruling on slavery and only the second conviction made under Niger’s 2003 anti-slavery law. The case gained a high level of publicity, setting the precedent for women to fight back against the traditional slavery practices common to Niger and other ECOWAS nations.

There appears to be no legislation in place in China which prohibits slavery although article 238 of the 1997 Criminal Law prohibits detaining or depriving a person of personal liberty. Article 240 also prohibits acts of abduction, kidnapping, buying, trafficking in, fetching, sending, or transferring women and children for the purpose of selling the victim.