• Friday, April 19, 2024

Business

UK funding to improve care standards for modern slavery victims in India

This photograph taken on September 18, 2017 shows an Indian woman working at a brick kiln on the outskirts of Jalandhar. Brick kiln workers in India are trapped in a cycle of bonded labour and regularly cheated out of promised wages, Anti-Slavery International said September 20, urging the government to safeguard their rights. A new report that surveyed kilns across the northern Punjab state details how rescued workers go back to the kilns again since no record is kept of payments and wages are withheld to lure them back. / AFP PHOTO / SHAMMI MEHRA / TO GO WITH: India labour slavery, by Abhaya SRISVASTAVA (Photo credit should read SHAMMI MEHRA/AFP/Getty Images)

By: Radhakrishna N S

PROJECTS to improve care standards for victims of modern slavery in India and Nepal are among those receiving part of a £4 million funding boost from the Home Office.

The Modern Slavery Innovation Fund (MSIF), which supports international projects to trial innovative ways of stopping modern slavery, has awarded up to £800,000 each to projects across the world.

The Freedom Fund is one among the first six projects which have been chosen for funding. The fund will work in India and Nepal to enhance victim care of frontline workers, the Home Office said in a statement on Friday (26).

Nick Grono, CEO of the Freedom Fund, said: “Together with our frontline partners, we are providing essential support to victims of child labour, early marriage, forced labour, debt bondage, and sex trafficking in high-prevalence areas of India and elsewhere.

“This grant will enable us to develop and roll out a highly innovative, victim-centred joint service delivery model that combines the most effective anti-slavery approaches with international social care best practice.

“It will allow groups of grassroots organisations, as well as government agencies, to co-ordinate more effectively and provide greatly improved personalised care to victims and their families.”

The funding marks the second phase of the fund and will run until 2021. The first phase of the fund totalled £6m and supported 10 projects between Spring 2017 and March 2019.

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