Lo sfruttamento del lavoro negli Stati membri del Consiglio d’Europa: una riflessione a margine del caso Chowdury

In the Chowdury case (app. n. 21884/15) the European Court of Human Rights held that Greece violated art. 4, para. 2, of the European Convention in relation to the trafficking of human beings committed against 42 Bangladeshi nationals, who did not have work permit and were exploited to pick strawberries on a farm in Manolada. The Court reiterated that human trafficking fell within the scope of art. 4. However, the Court distinguished from its precedent, in Rantsev v. Cyprus and Russia case (app. n. 25065/04), where trafficking was included within the scope of the profibition of slavery, and held that it should be interpreted in a broader way, in order to encompass any form of exploitation through labour. However the Court has not clarified the relationship between trafficking and forced labour, leaving a number of questions open such as, on the one hand, the qualification of cases of trafficking which do not involve labour exploitation and, on the other, the inclusion of severe forms of labour exploitation, which do not amount to trafficking, within the scope of forced labour.