FORCED LABOUR REPORT

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27075, 25 June 1953, Page 6

FORCED LABOUR REPORT

STUDY BY UNITED NATIONS COMMUNISTS AND SOUTH AFRICA CRITICISED (N.Z. Press Association— Copyright) (Rec. 9 p.m.) GENEVA, June 24. A United Nations committee has found that forced labour exists in Communist countries and in South Africa, and that there are laws in the British Commonwealth, the United States and Spain which could lead to forced labour. The committee, in its report, said that after examining allegations against 24 countries it found that two main systems of forced labour exist —for political coercion and for economic purposes. ' The committee reported that forced labour for economic purposes exists in South Africa, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Rumania. The committee said it was convinced that South Africa had a legislative system designed to maintain an insuperable barrier between Africans and Europeans and to create a permanent, abundant, and cheap labour force. It cleared Britain and her 12 territories of allegations of forced labour, but warned that Malaya’s emergency regulations and the voluntary unemployed ordinance in Kenya could both lead to forced labour systems, although it did not appear these laws were so applied at present.