Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2019, published 109th ILC session (2021)

Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29) - Senegal (Ratification: 1960)

Article 2(2)(c). Work exacted as a consequence of a conviction in a court of law. Community service. Referring to its previous comments, the Committee notes that the first section of Act No. 2016-29 of 8 November 2016 amends section 44-3 of the Penal Code and provides for the possibility for judges to substitute prison sentences shorter than six months with an alternative penalty to incarceration. This penalty consists of unpaid work carried out by a convicted person, with his or her consent, for the benefit of legal entities governed by public law or associations authorized to carry out such a measure. The Committee also notes that, in its fifth periodic report on the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 30 August 2018, submitted to the Human Rights Committee, the Government indicates that the Ministry of Justice has worked hard to get the sentence reduction system, as a whole, up and running, including by establishing a sentence reduction committee in each court of appeal. The replacement of short prison sentences by community service sentences, together with the other sentence reduction measures provided for in Acts Nos 2000-38 and 2000-39 of 29 December 2000 and the implementing decree of 2001, facilitate the reintegration of convicted persons into working society. Alternative sentences of this kind give beneficiaries the opportunity to take positive action and give back to society and deter them from reoffending. The judge responsible for the execution of sentences chairs the prison advisory committee for sentence reduction, which is responsible for helping him or her to determine the main features of the treatment that each convicted person will receive (see CCPR/C/SEN/5, paragraphs 52 and 60). The Committee therefore requests the Government to indicate the criteria by which judges grant authorization to associations wishing to receive persons sentenced to carry out community work and to specify the types of work they perform for those associations.