A British Government programme to combat modern day slavery
A very close friend of mine is Cindy Berman who is Senior Social Development Adviser, Asia Regional Team, at the Department For International Department here in the UK. She has been working on a programme to tackle modern day slavery which was launched this week.
There are an estimated 21 million people living in forced labour – or modern day slavery. The financial loss for families and communities who are trapped in forced labour amounts to over £13.8 billion annually in unpaid wages and illegal recruitment fees. This is money that could otherwise be used to help lift families and communities out of poverty. While most international efforts have focused on tackling sex trafficking, labour trafficking which is far more common has been relatively neglected.
The Work in Freedom programme will help to tackle known labour trafficking routes between countries of South Asia (Bangladesh, India and Nepal) to Gulf States including Jordan, United Arab Emirates and Lebanon.
The programme aims to:
- Provide 50,000 women with skills and pre-departure training and other support to help them avoid being trafficked and secure a legal contract and decent wage
- Help 30,000 women achieve greater economic empowerment so they are better able to support themselves and their families. This will be done through helping women understand their rights, enable them to organise collectively and vocational training to help ensure access to decent work opportunities
- Help thousands more migrant women to avoid paying extortionate, illegal recruitment fees by cracking down on unscrupulous recruitment practices and encouraging recruitment agencies to sign-up to ethical principles and practices
- Prevent child labour by helping thousands of girls under 16 years to stay in school, so they aren’t compelled to migrate for work.
This three-minute video brings the issues to life: