Frontline anti-slavery organisations, working together, are the key to ending modern slavery. Some five years after the Freedom Fund launched programs with 41 frontline partners in India, we are now seeing highly encouraging results. Specifically, we are seeing a very significant reduction in the prevalence of slavery in deeply vulnerable communities, and the freedom of tens of thousands of men, women and children who would otherwise now be living in bondage.
New findings from independent evaluations of our “hotspot” programs by leading research organisations have validated our model of working with vulnerable communities. The headline findings from these evaluations are:
These findings are documented in our new paper, Unlocking what works: How community-based interventions are ending bonded labour in India, published today. The paper summarises the results of five evaluations of two of our India programs. Taken together, these evaluations affirm that the power to end modern slavery lies in frontline communities themselves. Our programs are having a direct impact in the communities our partners are working in, and they are successfully building on this community-level work to positively change wider policies and systems.
We hope you will join us in celebrating both the inspiring impact of the work of our frontline partners and the important independent validation of our model.
We look forward to continuing to work with you to achieve our ambitious goals.