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.

Keep up to date by following us on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, where we will share the Slavery News Weekly every Thursday.

Refugee girls in Beirut ‘face sexual violence, forced marriage’
Al Jazeera, 18 June 2019
More than half of the girls living as refugees in Beirut have reported that girls their age face sexual violence and sexual harassment with alarming regularity, new research by Plan International, a development and humanitarian organization, has revealed.

Mexico announces end to funding for human trafficking NGOs
Reuters, 17 June 2019
Mexico will stop giving financial aid to anti-human trafficking organisations and instead run shelters and victim care directly, the president said on Monday, drawing criticism from activists who said the plan lacked detail.

Asian countries supplying the West with goods make slowest progress in ending child labour
South China Morning Post, 14 June 2019
Progress towards ending child labour has stalled in the countries most likely to be supplying goods to the west, a study has found. Despite high economic growth and big improvements in education and development, countries such as China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia have made little progress in tackling child labour.

Survey finds 400,000 Thai children are at work
The Nation, 14 June 2019
A recent study found that over 400,000 Thais under the age of 18 spend at least one hour a week laboring either for wages, other benefits or simply to ease their parent’s workload. Of the working children, 177,000 are considered labourers because of the time they devote to working each week.

Slave labour is used to catch fish. This tech aims to stop it.
National Geographic, 13 June 2019
New technology is making advocates and law enforcement optimistic that they might finally have a chance at freeing men held captive at sea on large commercial fishing vessels.

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].