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.  

China listed among worst human trafficking offenders in US TIP Report

The U.S. State Department’s 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report downgraded China to its lowest tier, stating the country failed to meet the minimum standards for eliminating human trafficking. Four African countries were also downgraded, and 14 countries were placed on the watch list, putting them at risk of being dropped to the bottom tier. 

The economic costs of child marriage

New research by the World Bank and ICRW on the economic impacts of child marriage predicts that the practice will cost the global economy trillions of dollars by 2030 as a result of negative effects on population growth, children’s health, and education.

Human smugglers perceived by refugees as useful guides

An article in Social Inclusion about the relationship between Syrian refugee smuggling and trafficking reports that many smugglers function as guides, informants, and allies to refugees, and thus refugee perceptions of smugglers diverge dramatically from government policy assumptions.

Weak design of EU’s anti-trafficking projects in South-East Asia

A report from the European Court of Auditors concludes that the EU’s policy for combatting human trafficking in South-East Asia should be more relevant to the needs of the region. The auditors note that the EU’s anti-trafficking projects had weaknesses in the formulation of objectives and indicators, with 23 out of 35 projects having objectives that were not specific or measurable enough.

Little is known about how companies address forced labour in leather supply chains

KnowTheChain examines the practices of ten major luxury & footwear companies to tackle forced labour risks in their supply chains. The study finds that publicly available information reveals little about what companies are doing to end abuses in countries where they source leather goods.

Read on…

• A new performance report by Humanity United evaluates their progress developing and implementing a practice of “systems thinking”. 
• ITUC’s 2017 Global Rights Index reveals that the number of countries experiencing physical violence against workers has risen by 10% in one year. 
• An article in the Journal of Social Science & Medicine examines how child marriage affects girls’ development and stunting. 

And finally

What exactly do we mean by “systems”? The Freedom Fund’s Dan Vexler explains this trendy term in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

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