Base Code clause 1: Employment is freely chosen

1.1 There is no forced, bonded or involuntary prison labour.

1.2 Workers are not required to lodge "deposits" or their identity papers with their employer and are free to leave their employer after reasonable notice.

ETI resources

Other online resources

Relevant ILO conventions

Provisional record 9A (2014): Text of the protocol to the forced labour convention, 1930

C29 - Forced Labour Convention, 1930

This Convention requires the suppression of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms. Forced labour is ‘all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.' The ILO Committee of Experts has held that this definition is sufficiently wide to cover debt-bondage.

For the purposes of this Convention, the term ‘forced labour' does not include obligations such as military service or other normal civic obligations. Also excluded is work exacted as a consequence of a criminal conviction.
Also relevant to this Convention: R35 - Forced Labour (Indirect Compulsion) Recommendation, 1930.

C105 - Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957

This Convention prohibits the use of any form of forced or compulsory labour - including work following a criminal conviction - as a means of:

  • political coercion or education, or punishment for the expression of political or ideological views,
  • workforce mobilisation for purposes of economic development,
  • labour discipline,
  • punishment for participation in strikes, or
  • racial, social, national or religious discrimination.