Modern Slavery News Round-Up

The business of human trafficking
Companies often use complex global procurement systems to deny their part in human trafficking but what can responsible businesses do to address the issue? Seven years ago, David Arkless took a call from the first lady of an African state. She wanted to know what his company was doing about human trafficking. His answer was blunt: "What human trafficking?" The question prompted him to investigate. The figures proved startling. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, more than 2.4 million people are being exploited by traffickers at any one time. Some campaign groups suggest the annual number of victims could be as high as 27 million.

Put an End to Blood Minerals
Imagine your 15-year-old daughter walking to the corner store to get a carton of milk. She has walked along this street nearly every day growing up. But this afternoon on the way home, a group of men pull her into the bushes. Each man takes a turn raping her, the last one with the barrel of his AK-47. Left bleeding and unable to walk, she takes shelter in the nearby forest. Why doesn’t she go home, you ask? She can’t. The rape is considered her fault. She is now disowned by her family. After surviving weeks on berries and sugar cane she is discovered by a man who thought he smelled a rotting corpse. But the stench is the result of a rape so brutal that the passageway between her vagina and anus broke down, becoming one gaping wound.

MYANMAR-THAILAND: Undocumented workers exploited post-floods
BANGKOK, 8 November 2011 (IRIN) - While the Burmese government has re-opened a key border checkpoint between Thailand and Myanmar to accommodate thousands of migrants fleeing Thailand's flooded factories, undocumented - and now unemployed - migrants face extortion and abuse as they try to return home, according to migrants and activists.

Zimbabwean girls struggle to access education
One-third of primary-school-aged girls and 67% of those at the secondary school level are unable to access education in Zimbabwe, according to a study from Plan International. Poverty, sexual abuse and child marriage are among the major factors adversely affecting school attendance for girls.

11,000 girls are recruited to promote India gender equality
Red Cross societies across the Indian state of Haryana are gearing up to train more than 11,000 predominately female college students to persuade parents not to abort fetuses shown to be girls. “These students will turn into parents in coming years, and we hope that they won’t forget the importance of girls. As parents, they will be in a position to make a change by deciding against gender bias,” said Syham Sunder, secretary of the Red Cross Society in the district of Yamunanagar.