Forced labour is a legal term that is defined in the International Labour Organization’s Convention of Forced Labour, 1930 ‘as 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’. Forced labour refers to situations in which persons are coerced to work through the use of violence or intimidation, or by more subtle means such as accumulated debt, retention of identity papers or threats of denunciation to immigration authorities The most vulnerable and excluded groups (such as women, undocumented or temporary migrants, religious minorities and indigenous people), are often subject to intersecting forms of discrimination and disadvantage, and are disproportionately relegated to forced labour. See here for the ILO’s information on Forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking.