The Concept of Trafficking and Labour Exploitation
Labour exploitation is punished under the Criminal Code within the framework of trafficking; the foundation of this page is Article 143-1 on trafficking and Article 143-3 on using the services of a victim. Article 143-1 covers the buying or selling of a person, any other unlawful transaction, as well as the recruitment, transfer, harbouring, hiring, transportation, handing over or receipt of a person for the purpose of exploitation — by threat, violence or another form of coercion, abduction, blackmail, fraud, deception, abuse of a helpless condition or of power, or by giving or receiving payment or benefit to achieve the consent of a person who has influence over another. For the purposes of this norm, exploitation includes, among others, forced labour or services and placing a person in conditions of contemporary slavery.
Contemporary slavery is described precisely in the law: a condition in which a person, with remuneration, inadequate remuneration or without it, performs work or services for another and cannot change this circumstance because of dependence. Dependence may be caused by the confiscation, control or deliberate infringement of an identity document, restriction of free movement, restriction of communication with family or others, or the creation of a coercive or intimidating environment. The decisive rule: the consent of a person to their premeditated exploitation has no significance.