Alleged violation of article 15 on child labour 79. State Parties to the African Children’s Charter are obliged to take all the necessary measures to ensure that children are protected from all forms of economic exploitation and from performing hazardous works or works that affect their physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development both in the formal and informal sectors.°° The Committee also shares the view that all forms of slavery and slavery like practices are considered to be worst forms of child labour pursuant to ILO Convention No 182.°" 80.In the Communication at hand, the Committee notes that Said and Yarg have been placed in the El Hassine family to undertake herding and domestic chores seven days a week with no rest for the exploitation of their labour, which in accordance with the Committee amounts to contemporary form of slavery or slavery like practices.** The Committee stresses that the prohibition of slavery and slavery like practices has attained the status of customary international law and jus cogens norms.°? The International Court of Justice has further established that States’ obligation to prohibit and eliminate slavery is an erga omnes obligation.* It therefore follows that States are not allowed to derogate from their obligation to prohibit slavery in any circumstances, and moreover, no justification is acceptable for the failure of States to prohibit slavery or slavery like practices. 81. It is the Committee’s view that exploitative slavery practices against children impair their survival and development physically, intellectually, socially, spiritually, and morally. Furthermore, the Committee gives due regard to the interrelatedness and interdependence of children’s rights in considering the violation of article 15 of the Charter. The servitude of Said and Yarg in and by itself is a violation of article 15 of the African Children’s Charter and also it leads to other violations of the numerous provisions of the Charter such as the right to birth registration, access to health care and other basic services, family environment and so forth. Additionally, slavery or slavery like practices lead to violation of fundamental freedoms, right to movement, access to fair trial, and subject children to inhuman and degrading treatment.°° 82. Given the legal status of the prohibition of slavery or slavery like practices and its long lasting impact on the rights and welfare of children, the Government of Mauritania is expected to take concrete and practical steps to prevent and abolish all slavery like practices that persist in its territory. Article 15 of the African Charter provides that children should be protected from economic exploitation and preforming work that is hazardous to their 5° ACRWC article 15(1)(2). 51 ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention 1999 (No. 182). 52 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Practices Similar to Slavery article 1(d). 53 Yearbook of the 63.V.2, pp. 198-199. International Law Commission 1963, vol. Slave Il, United Trade, Nations and Institutions and sales publication No. ° Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Co, Ltd. (Belgium v. Spain), Judgment of 5 February 1971, I.C.J. Reports, 1970, p. 32. 24