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Slavery News Weekly: 3 May 2017

May 4, 2017 / Media, Slavery News Weekly The Freedom Fund / @freedom_fund

Each week the Freedom Fund compiles the most insightful and timely news stories about modern slavery. Check out what we’re reading among this week’s top slavery articles.

Bank staff will ‘red-flag’ trafficking suspects with powerful new tool
Thomson Reuters Foundation, 2 May 17
In response to rising concerns about the growth of trafficking rings operating across Europe, bank employees will now be trained to spot and report signs of human trafficking using a practical toolkit – including “red-flag indicators” and case studies – launched by the European Bankers Alliance and the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Mexico’s lost generation of young girls robbed of innocence and education
The Guardian, 2 May 2017
Hundreds of thousands of young girls across Mexico are being driven into relationships and marriages with older men, denying them a childhood and an education, according to a report commissioned by the Ford Foundation. The data represents part of a wider trend across Latin America, the only region in the world where child marriage is increasing rather than in decline.

Female Islamic clerics in Indonesia issue rare child marriage fatwa
BBC News, 28 April 2017
Female Islamic clerics in Indonesia have issued an unprecedented fatwa against child marriage. The fatwa, which is not legally binding but will be influential, was issued after a three-day congress of female clerics in the country. The clerics urged the government to raise the minimum legal age for women to marry to 18 from the current 16. Indonesia is a majority Muslim country and has among the highest number of child brides in the world.

Thirty years living and working as a modern-day slave
CNN Freedom Project, 27 April 2017
The CNN Freedom Project profiled a survivor who spent 30 years in captivity working as a slave in domestic servitude. Following her escape, her captor was convicted on slavery and domestic work charges, but transitioning into a normal life is proving difficult for the survivor, even after three years of regaining her freedom.

Trafficked Woman Reunited With Parents After 13 Years
The Irrawaddy, 25 April 2017
A woman who was taken as a teenager 13 years ago and endured two forced marriages in China is one of many trafficking victims taken from Myanmar and sold as brides in China. The survivor was recently reunited with her parents after escaping her captors.

Learn more

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

Do you have a story you’d like to see featured in our roundup? Submit articles at [email protected].

Photo credit: Jenna Mulhall-Brereton/Geneva Global