Signed 7 September 1956 Effective 30 April 1957 Signatories 35 | Location Geneva, Switzerland Condition Fulfilled | |
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Parties 123 (as at May 2013)(Convention and subsequent Protocol) | ||
The Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the full title of which is the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, is a 1956 United Nations treaty which builds upon the 1926 Slavery Convention, which is still operative and which proposed to secure the abolition of slavery and of the slave trade, and the Forced Labour Convention of 1930, which banned forced or compulsory labour, by banning debt bondage, serfdom, child marriage, servile marriage, and child servitude.
Summary of key articles
Article 1 - The parties commit to abolish and abandon debt bondage, serfdom, servile marriage and child servitude.
Article 2 - The parties commit to enacting minimum ages of marriage, encouraging registration of marriages, and encouraging the public declaration of consent to marriage.
Article 3 - Criminalisation of slave trafficking.
Article 4 - Runaway slaves who take refuge on flag vessels of parties shall thereby ipso facto attain their freedom.
Article 5 - Criminalisation of the marking (including mutilation and branding) of slaves and servile persons.
Article 6 - Criminalisation of enslavement and giving others into slavery.
Article 7 - Definitions of "slave", "a person of servile status" and "slave trade"
Article 9 - No reservations may be made to this Convention.
Article 12 - This Convention shall apply to all non-self-governing-trust, colonial and other non-metropolitan territories to the international relations of which any State Party is responsible.