issued by the Registrar of the Court

ECHR 414 (2012)

13.11.2012

Lack of specific legislation criminalising domestic servitude

made investigation into victim’s allegations ineffective

In today’s Chamber judgment in the case of C.N. v. the United Kingdom (application

no. 4239/08), which is not final¹, the European Court of Human Rights held,

unanimously, that there had been:

a violation of Article 4 (prohibition of slavery and forced labour) of the European

Convention on Human Rights.

The case concerned allegations of domestic servitude by a Ugandan woman who

complained that she had been forced into working as a live-in carer.

The Court found that the legislative provisions in force in the United Kingdom at the

relevant time had been inadequate to afford practical and effective protection against

treatment contrary to Article 4. Due to this absence of specific legislation criminalising

domestic servitude, the investigation into the applicant’s allegations of domestic

servitude had been ineffective.

Principal facts

The applicant, Ms C.N., is a Ugandan national who was born in 1979. She left Uganda for

the United Kingdom in September 2002 with the help of her cousin, S., who enabled her

to enter the country with a false passport and visa. According to the applicant, her

purpose was to escape from the sexual and physical violence which she had experienced

in Uganda.

In early 2003 Ms C.N. began to work as a live-in carer for an elderly Iraqi couple (“Mr

and Mrs K”). She alleged that she was permanently on-call day and night as Mr K.

suffered from Parkinson’s disease. According to Ms C.N., her salary was sent to the

agent who had arranged her work with the K family; he then passed a percentage of that

money to S. on the apparent understanding that it would be paid to her. However, she

denied having received significant payment for her labour. During that time, her

passport was also retained.

In August 2006, she collapsed in a bank and spent a month in hospital, where she was

diagnosed as HIV positive and suffering from psychosis. Following her discharge from

hospital, Ms C.N. was housed by the local authority and made an application for asylum,

which was refused.

After the applicant’s solicitor had written to the police in April 2007, the Metropolitan

Police Human Trafficking Team commenced an investigation and interviewed Ms C.N.

They concluded that there was no substantial evidence of trafficking in her case. The

1 Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month

period following its delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the

Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges considers whether the case deserves further

examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final judgment. If the referral

request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day.

Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for

supervision of its execution. Further information about the execution process can be found here:

www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution

Head of Legal Services at the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre²further advised

that while the applicant worked with the K family she was well looked after and given

some money. There was, however, a dispute over money and it might have been that

“her cousin kept more than he should have done”.

After Ms C.N.’s solicitor had asked the police to consider prosecutions for other offences,

including slavery or forced labour, the police began to conduct further investigations in

January 2009. In their letter to Ms C.N.’s solicitor in August 2009, the police wrote that it

had been decided to conclude the investigation, based in particular on the conclusions of

the Human Trafficking Centre that “the circumstances of Ms N.’s case did not appear to

constitute an offence of trafficking people for the purposes of exploitation contrary to the

Asylum and Immigration Act 2004”.

On 6 April 2010 Section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 came into force and

made slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour criminal offences punishable by

a fine and/or up to fourteen years’ imprisonment. This provision did not have

retrospective effect.

Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court

Relying on Article 4 (prohibition of slavery and forced labour), Article 8 (right to respect

for private and family life) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), the applicant

alleged that the treatment to which she had been subjected had amounted to domestic

servitude and that the authorities had been unable to investigate her case owing to the

absence of legislation in the United Kingdom at the time specifically criminalising

domestic servitude and forced or compulsory labour.

The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 24 January

2008.

The Aire Centre and the Equality and Human Rights Commission were granted leave to

make written submissions as third parties.

Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:

Lech Garlicki (Poland), President,

Nicolas Bratza (the United Kingdom),

Päivi Hirvelä (Finland),

George Nicolaou (Cyprus),

Ledi Bianku (Albania),

Zdravka Kalaydjieva (Bulgaria),

Nebojša Vučinić (Montenegro),

and also Lawrence Early, Section Registrar.

Decision of the Court

Article 4

The Court noted that the authorities had first been made aware of the applicant’s

allegations of domestic servitude after she had collapsed in a bank in August 2006. In

her subsequent application for asylum, she had complained in particular that she had

been forced to work for the K family without remuneration. Furthermore, in April 2007

A multi-agency organisation based in Sheffield, providing a central point of expertise in the field of human

trafficking.

her solicitor had asked the police to investigate her case and during the interview by the

Human Trafficking Team, Ms C.N. had set out her domestic servitude complaints. The

Court observed that the circumstances of her case had been remarkably similar to the

facts of the Siliadin v. France³case, in which the Court confirmed that Article 4 entailed

a specific positive obligation on member States to penalise and prosecute effectively any

act aimed at maintaining a person in a situation of slavery, servitude or forced or

compulsory labour.

The Court therefore considered that the applicant’s complaints had given rise to a

credible suspicion of domestic servitude, which in turn had placed the British authorities

under an obligation to investigate those complaints. The Court noted in that connection

that the authorities’ investigation into the applicant’s complaints had strongly indicated

that her allegations had not been inherently implausible.

In view of its findings in the Siliadin judgment - that the provisions of the French

Criminal Code were too restrictive to protect the applicant’s rights under Article 4 - the

Court could only conclude that the legislative provisions in force in the United Kingdom

at the time had been inadequate to afford practical and effective protection against

treatment contrary to Article 4. Indeed, the authorities had been limited to investigating

and penalising criminal offences which often – but not necessarily – accompanied the

offences of slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour. Victims of domestic

servitude who had not also been victims of one of these related offences had been left

without any remedy.

The Court then examined whether this lack of specific legislation criminalising domestic

servitude had prevented the domestic authorities from properly investigating the

applicant’s complaints. It was concerned by the fact that the investigation had been

carried out by a specialist trafficking unit who nearly exclusively focused on the offence

of trafficking for exploitation as set out in the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004, when

domestic servitude was, as indicated in the third party interventions⁴, a specific offence,

distinct from trafficking and exploitation.

Consequently, as domestic servitude involved a complex set of dynamics, due weight

had to be given to subtle ways an individual could fall under the control of another,

which the domestic authorities had been unable to do in Ms C.N.’s case, in the absence

of a specific offence of domestic servitude. In particular, no attempt had been made to

interview S. and no apparent weight had been attributed to the applicant’s allegations

that her passport had been taken from her, that S. had not kept her wages for her as

agreed and that she had been threatened with denunciation to the immigration

authorities, even though these factors had been identified by the International Labour

Organization as indicators of forced labour.

The Court concluded that the investigation into Ms C.N.’s allegations of domestic

servitude had been ineffective due to the absence of specific legislation criminalising

such treatment in the United Kingdom at the relevant time, in breach of Article 4 of the

Convention.