48 Michèle Dachet
trade in human beings imposes the further insuperable obstacle of the distance
between the place of work and the place of residence.^73 In 1926, the Slavery
Convention recommended that no amendment should be made to this except
when the work is necessary for 'public purposes', such as the construction
of the first African railways.^74 A commission of inquiry sent out to Liberia
in 1930 reported that 'conveying groups of indigenous captives' to the coast
was tantamount to a form of slave trade, and that forced labour was therefore
nothing but slavery in disguise, and yet in 1932 the 'Standing Advisory Com-
mittee of Experts on Slavery' did not deal with forced labour.^75 What is
undoubtedly at the root of all this lack of decision is the difficulty of recon-
ciling huminitarianism and politics, of speaking up in the name of human
rights when the interests of the great colonial powers are exacerbated to such
a degree that while pretending to reject slavery, they accept forced labour,
which they need.
The International Labour Office then decided to deal more specifically
with 'forced labour' by trying, if not to stop it, at least to restrict the powers
of those who had recourse to it.^78 The danger is inherent in any country where
workers are 'recruited or engaged through a system of voluntary migration'.
This manpower drain is dangerous because it 'tends to perpetuate conditions
of servitude', gives rise to extremely poor conditions of output and remunera-
tion, and finally because it hinders the development of the villages left deserted.
However the practice was so widespread that the ' Recruiting of Indigenous
Workers Convention' (No. 50) was ratified only by the countries which did
not feel directly concerned. In 1949, the statute on 'migrants for employment'
(Migration for Employment Convention, No. 97) sought, by the choice of a
neutral term to describe them, to protect workers recruited in the so-called
underdeveloped countries, in particular the Africans. The United Nations
General Assembly had just, on 10 December 1948, adopted the prohibition
of slavery and the slave trade 'in all their forms' (Article 4), but without
referring to forced labour, even though it asserted that everyone has the right
to 'free choice of employment'. This 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights'
marked the victory, at the international level, of an ideal, frail though the
Second World War had shown it to be. Deportation, slavery and extermination
had been the lot of many of those peoples who had formerly been conquerors
and colonizers. In the advocacy of human rights, with no discrimination on
grounds of race or religion, there was a sort of consensus which reflected both
the strength and the weakness of the liberal humanism that had been the legacy
of the Age of Enlightenment. Its strength lies in a certain idea of man, of his
freedom and dignity, which, after a bitter struggle, has been accepted ever
since the eighteenth century. Its weakness lies in the fact that it is a principle,
nothing more, a mere 'statement' which is not binding upon those who manipu-
late men and words, with whom 'forced' labour spells servitude and slavery,