In a speech at the UN General Assembly, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) Secretary of State Penny Mordaunt MP will announce a range of new initiatives that will improve understanding of the factors that drive modern slavery and the worst forms of child labour and develop innovative interventions to counteract them.
Tackling the drivers of modern slavery and child labour – a child centred approach
The programme ‘Tackling the drivers of modern slavery and child labour – a child centred approach’ will be funded by DFID and led by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS).
IDS will be working with partners across the sector to identify ways in which children’s options to avoid engagement in hazardous, exploitative labour can be increased. Core partners are Terre des hommes, ChildHope, Consortium for Street Children, the Ethical Trading Initiative, and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
The programme will focus its work around three target countries – Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal – and will be built upon a large-scale action research process. There will be four key strands of work:
- Innovations in targeted social protection.
- Supporting positive family dynamics and social norms.
- Revealing and reducing harm in supply chains.
- Building children’s agency and child-led coalitions.
Professor Danny Burns, Programme Director, based at the Institute of Development Studies said:
“This programme is designed to generate innovation from the ground which can sustainably improve the lives of many children across Asia who work under terrible and hazardous conditions.
The programme will build on a growing body of research that IDS is undertaking on these issues, and is part of a broader area of work on participation, inclusion and social change at the Institute.”
Other IDS resources on modern slavery and child labour
Key IDS projects on modern slavery and child labour include:
- Modern slavery in India and Nepal funded by the Freedom Fund
- Pilot Study to Estimate the Extent of Child Soldiering, Child Labour, Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery in South Sudan, DRC and Nigeria funded by International Labour Organization (ILO)
- Centre for Social Protection.
Key IDS publications and blogs on modern slavery and child labour include:
- The Modern Slavery Trap: Bonded Labour
- Participatory statistics to measure prevalence in bonded labour hotspots in Nepal: Report on findings of the baseline study
- Tackling health loans and modern slavery as a community in Bihar, India
- Mid-Term Review of the Freedom Fund Southern India Bonded Labour Hotspot
- Patterns and Dynamics of Bonded Labour and Child Labour in the Spinning Mills of Tamil Nadu: Findings From Life Story Analysis
- Patterns and dynamics of bonded labour, child labour and child marriage in the Nepali Eastern Terai: Findings from life story analysis
- Participatory Statistics to Measure Prevalence in Bonded Labour Hotspots in Tamil Nadu: Report of Preliminary Findings of the Baseline Study
- Participatory Statistics to Measure Prevalence in Bonded Labour Hotspots in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar: Report of Preliminary Findings of the Baseline Study
- Using Participatory Statistics to Examine the Impact of Interventions to Eradicate Slavery: Lessons from the Field
- Social Protection and Child Labour in Asia
- Data on the Prevalence of the Worst Forms of Child Labour
Photo: Brick making in India (Creative Commons CC0)
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