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Friday May 15, 2020

“What is happening in my homeland is cultural genocide”

Uyghur activist Rahima Mahmut shares how the Chinese government's repressive system of forced labor in the Uyghur Region has impacted her and her loved ones. My name is Rahima Mahmut and I am from Ghulja, in the north of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region/East Turkistan. I have been unable to return home since I came to the UK in 2000 because I chose to speak out about the injustice my people faced. But for most of those years I was still in normal contact with my family—we would have long conversations on the phone. Then in 2016, I began to hear about the chilling changes

Activists

Thursday April 9, 2020

How to stay home and take action!

This is a strange time for the world and so much has changed about our daily lives. With many of us staying inside where possible, and our events and plans put on pause, we’re taking this as an opportunity to fire up our activism! Check out our Stay Home hub where you can take action to call for better protections for workers, end forced child marriage and demand better support for survivors. The Freedom United team has also put together a list of top tips on how we can all continue to make change happen without having to leave the house. But we’d love to share what you’re doing,

Anti-slavery activists

Friday March 20, 2020

Let’s remember that addressing racial discrimination is crucial to ending modern slavery

Modern slavery can affect people of any gender, age, ethnicity, or race. However today on International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Freedom United is raising awareness of the critical link between racial discrimination and forms of modern slavery. Modern slavery thrives upon existing structures of racial inequality that are already deeply present in the global system. This inherent power imbalance creates an opportunity for vulnerable communities to be exploited. Across the Middle East, where the kafala visa sponsorship system thrives, migrant workers are

Forced Labor

Friday March 13, 2020

Our executive director shares thoughts on coronavirus & modern slavery

Joanna Ewart-James

It’s hard to deny that the effects of coronavirus or Covid-19 are wide-reaching, as drastic attempts to reduce its impact become ever more widespread. But what about the impact on modern slavery? Like many areas of life, the coronavirus has affected the effort to fight it – next week’s My Story, My Dignity workshops are cancelled as is a planned 107,511 strong petition hand-in, led by Payzee Mahmod, to the British Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street. As a direct result of measures to control the spread of the pandemic, the factors that make people vulnerable to modern slavery are

Female Empowerment

Monday February 17, 2020

Bangladesh film screening brings attention to labor issues in garment industry

On Thursday night, Freedom United supporters gathered in New York City for a screening of Rubaiyat Hossain’s new docudrama Made in Bangladesh, co-hosted with our partners at the United Nations Association of New York. The film follows a group of women working in exploitative labor conditions in one of Bangladesh’s fast fashion factories. When Shimu, the headstrong protagonist, discovers that she earns pennies sewing clothes that sell for high prices in Western markets, she leads her coworkers in a struggle to unionize and demand their labor rights. Made in Bangladesh