The National Contact Point of the EMN in the Slovak Republic organized this conference with a view to supporting the nascent national debate in defining and implementing the concept of labour exploitation. 

Foreigners become more and more victims of exploitative working conditions, labour exploitation or forced labour in Slovakia. Addressing such cases is difficult mainly because of insufficient legislative and support mechanisms in identifying cases that concern both foreigners with and without authorized stay in the territory of Slovakia. 

In this context the conference engaged a variety of stakeholders (policy-makers, professionals from state administration, private and non-profit sector, representatives of local governments and academia) to collect good practices and experiences from selected EU and non-EU countries on this subject.

The following points were inter alia highlighted:

• While slavery and human trafficking are banned almost universally, many countries still do not have domestic legislation explicitly prohibiting forced labour and exploitative labour conditions. By mapping antislavery legislation across all UN Member States, researchers from the University of Nottingham and Monash University show that “national engagement with international law governing human exploitation has been erratic, irregular and incomplete”, and that no region in the world is performing significantly better than another. The full database can be consulted here: https://antislaverylaw.ac.uk/

• Businesses, employers and the private sector have an important role to play in upholding the human and labour rights of foreign workers. While a lot of work has already been done in supply chain transparency and upholding workers’ rights, a lot of questions remain for the future: how do we engage SMEs and companies that are not integrated into global supply chains? How do we get to the informal economy and the intersection with irregular migration? What more can we do in terms of the voice and empowerment of the workers themselves, especially migrant workers? How do we improve access to remedy?

• A common practice in the fight against labour exploitation is the use of labour inspectors. Experiences across selected European countries show that this practice requires important coordination efforts between public authorities, as it entails important risks and is often challenging in many ways.

Photo credits: IOM Slovakia