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

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Key to ending modern slavery lies in frontline communities, new report finds
Triple Pundit, 10 October 2019
The report – “Unlocking What Works: How Community-Based Interventions Are Ending Bonded Labour in India” – looks at a five-year, $15 million intervention campaign supported by the Freedom Fund to protect workers in India. It points to evidence from their frontline partners in forced labour hotspots such as Nepal and Thailand that suggests that ethical auditing and corporate certification schemes are ineffective tools for addressing and preventing forced labour in global supply chains. Instead, a variety of community-based interviews and mobilisation are key.

Titans of Thai fishing collaborate to tackle slavery
Thomson Reuters Foundation, 10 October 2019
Four years after the Thai seafood industry came under fire for its work practice, the government and private sector have introduced a raft of measures – from worker contracts to tighter laws – to clean up the multi-billion dollar sector.

Malaysia’s first ‘ethical’ job agency targets modern slavery
Yahoo, 7 October 2019
A Malaysian recruitment agency set to launch a pioneering “ethical” hiring model has called for an industry overhaul to tackle debt bondage among migrant workers and end modern slavery in the Southeast Asian nation.

A new report outlines how fashion companies can help reduce modern slavery
Dazed, 7 October 2019
Although conversations surrounding fashion’s impact on the environment is becoming increasingly prevalent, something that seems to take second place to this is its impact on people, with forced and underpaid labour and still rife across the industry. According to the Global Slavery Index, over 40 million people trapped in modern slavery around the world, with roughly 71 percent of those being women. Now, the Freedom Fund has set out to tackle this issue head-on, releasing a new report detailing how it has successfully reduced the exploitation of workers in focused areas such as India.

40 million people worldwide considered modern slaves
ABC News, 27 September 2019
ABC News Breakfast spoke with Yuki Lo, the Freedom Fund’s senior research and evaluation manager about new findings from external evaluations of the Freedom Fund’s hotspot programs by leading research organizations.

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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].