Editing Labor camp (section)

{{Short description|Type of detention facility}}
{{distinguish|concentration camp}}
{{Use American English|date=November 2020}}
[[File:Canal Mer Blanche.jpg|thumb |263px |The [[White Sea–Baltic Canal]] opened on 2 August 1933 was the first major industrial project constructed in the [[Soviet Union]] using only [[forced labor]].]]
{{slavery}}

A '''labor camp''' (or '''labour camp''', see [[British and American spelling differences|spelling differences]]) or '''work camp''' is a detention facility where inmates are [[unfree labour|forced to engage]] in [[penal labor]] as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with [[slavery]] and with [[prison]]s (especially [[prison farm]]s). Conditions at labor camps vary widely depending on the operators. Convention no. 105 of the United Nations [[International Labour Organization]] (ILO), adopted internationally on 27 June 1957, intended to abolish camps of forced labor.<ref>{{citation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fSIMXHMdfkkC&q=LABOR+CAMPS.&pg=PA1248|title=Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements: G to M|publisher=Routledge - New York, London|date=1 January 2003|access-date=19 July 2024}}</ref>

In the 20th century, a new category of labor camps developed for the imprisonment of millions of people who were not criminals ''per se'', but political opponents (real or imagined) and various so-called undesirables under communist and fascist regimes.