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The Slavery Research Bulletin: Issue 14, October 2016

Bulletin
October 17, 2016

Welcome to the Slavery Research Bulletin, the Freedom Fund’s monthly brief designed to bring you new & compelling research from the global anti-slavery movement.

Around the world, a girl is married every two seconds

Based on current rates, the total number of women married in childhood is expected to grow from 700 to 950 million by 2030. On the International Day of the Girl (11th Oct), Save the Children published Every Last Girl: Free to live, free to learn, free from harm. The report introduces the Girls’ Opportunity Index, ranking 144 countries on their progress in eliminating child marriage, improving access to education and health services, and increasing the proportion of women in parliament.

How the UN Security Council can address slavery in conflict

The United Nations University offers 10 ideas for the UN Security Council to fight human trafficking in conflict situations. Proposals include: increased monitoring of armed groups’ involvement in human trafficking, data-sharing, use of sanctions and international criminal justice cooperation.

What drives child marriage in Nepal?

Through interviews with 104 individuals who were married as children, Human Rights Watch explains how child marriage in Nepal is driven by poverty, lack of access to education, child labour and harmful social norms. The research concurs with the global evidence that girls who marry as children are at greater risk of domestic violence than women who marry later.

Increasing identification of sex trafficking victims in the U.S.

Polaris takes a closer look at the lives of sex trafficking victims, based on insights from 1,611 survivors in the U.S. The role of law enforcement and health professionals can be significant – while being trafficked, 88% of victims had seen a healthcare worker and 27% had interacted with law enforcement officials. Although more victims are now being identified by these front-line workers, too many are being ignored or worse still, arrested.

(Mis)representations of modern slavery in the media?

A special issue of the Anti-Trafficking Review investigates the narrative around trafficking in Australia, Cambodia, Denmark, Nigeria, Serbia, the UK and U.S. It found a narrow representation of trafficking victims that encourages law enforcement type responses and underplays the social and economic conditions that lead to the exploitation of workers.

Read on…

  • The Open Institute’s research into internal migrants in Cambodia found 72% of workers started their journey without any prior information about the job they were going to.
  • The Migration Policy Institute argues that refugee livelihoods is a new field and measurement efforts, thus far, have focused on short-term program targets rather than longer-term impact on the lives of refugees.

And finally

Oxfam GB have released their first statement on risk of slavery in their operations and supply chain, in compliance with the UK Modern Slavery Act.

News & updates

For more news and updates about the Freedom Fund, visit our Newsroom. You can also view archived issues of our bulletin here.

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Photo credit: Ginny Baumann

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The Freedom Fund