-Press release by International Labour Organisation dated 12 September, 2022 Latest estimates show that forced labour and forced marriage have increased significantly in the last five years, according to the International Labour Organization, Walk Free and the International Organization for Migration. GENEVA (ILO News): Fifty million people were living in modern slavery in 2021, according to the latest Global Estimates of Modern Slavery. Of these people, 28 million were in forced labour...

-Press release by Freedom from Bondage movement dated 6 September, 2022 New Delhi: As we mark #75thIndependenceDay & #AzadiKaAmritMahotsav, thousands of people who have been evicted from their homes in slums, Jhuggies, settlement colonies and informal sector workers who have been denied their livelihood without any rehabilitation have gathered at Jantar Mantar to raise their voice against the “Bulldozer Raj”.  The government is forcibly snatching the land of poor Dalits and...

-The Hindu It allows employers to extend unlimited advances to workers and charge an unspecified interest rate on such loans Debt bondage is a form of slavery that exists when a worker is induced to accept advances on wages, of a size, or at a level of interest, such that the advance will never be repaid. One of India’s hastily-passed Labour Codes — the Code on Wages, 2019 — gives legal sanction...

-Down to Earth Cyclones in India, particularly in the Sundarbans, made locals vulnerable to traffickers and drove them into forced labour, the report flagged  Climate change-induced extreme weather events put women, children and minorities at risk of modern slavery and human trafficking. The phenomenon is on the rise in India, among other countries, warned the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and Anti-Slavery International in a recent report.  Modern slavery — including...

-The Hindu Business Line As our governments think and rethink lockdown measures and scheme policy interventions, it is time we, as a society collective, pay attention to our children on the brink of irreversible damage What does it mean to lose one’s childhood to unsung labour? What is it like when books are replaced by bricks, playgrounds by agricultural fields, plastic toys with heavy-metal machines, alphabet recitations by silent cries of help?...