## Facts

- A Togolese minor entered France in 1994 on a tourist visa with an adult who promised schooling and regularization in exchange for housework.
- Her passport was confiscated, and she was required to perform unpaid domestic work.
- She was later transferred to another household, where she worked as a live-in housemaid and childcare provider for several years.
- She worked long hours every day, seven days a week, without rest and without wages (aside from occasional small sums from a third party).
- Her lack of legal status and confiscated documents made her fear police intervention; her employers maintained this fear while suggesting her status would be resolved.
- A neighbor alerted an anti-slavery group; authorities intervened in 1998.
- Criminal charges were brought under French provisions addressing exploitation of vulnerable persons and subjection to degrading working/living conditions.
- Trial court convictions were overturned on appeal, resulting in acquittals; prosecutors did not pursue further criminal review.
- The applicant obtained civil compensation and labor-related awards, but no final criminal conviction was secured.

## Issues

1. Whether the applicant retained “victim” status under ECHR Article 34 despite receiving civil compensation and improvements to her situation.
2. Whether France violated ECHR Article 4 by failing to adopt and effectively apply criminal-law measures that provided specific and effective protection against domestic servitude and forced or compulsory labor.

## Decision

- The European Court of Human Rights unanimously held the applicant remained a “victim” for purposes of Article 34.
- The Court found a violation of Article 4, concluding France failed to ensure specific and effective criminal-law protection against the servitude and forced labor suffered by the applicant.
- The Court determined the facts established forced or compulsory labor and, given the applicant’s dependency and loss of autonomy, amounted to servitude (though not “slavery” in the classic ownership-rights sense).

## Legal Principles

- Article 4 imposes positive obligations: states must adopt and effectively implement criminal-law provisions that penalize and punish conduct maintaining a person in slavery, servitude, or forced or compulsory labor.
- “Servitude” under Article 4 can exist without formal ownership where a person is held in a sustained condition of dependency, extreme control, and loss of personal autonomy, including in a private domestic setting.
- Civil compensation alone may be insufficient to remove victim status where the gravamen of the complaint is the absence of an effective criminal-law response to serious exploitation.
- Where the victim is a child and otherwise vulnerable (including due to immigration status and isolation), the state’s duty to provide effective protection against exploitation is heightened.

## Conclusion

The Court held that France breached Article 4 because its criminal-law framework and enforcement did not provide effective protection against a minor’s prolonged domestic servitude and forced labor, and that civil redress did not eliminate the applicant’s victim status given the lack of an effective criminal accountability mechanism.


Siliadin v. France, App. No. 73316/01 (Eur. Ct. H.R. 2005)