Ending enslavement of girls in South India and Ethiopia

Indian and Ethiopian adolescent girls hoping to find meaningful employment find themselves instead trapped in slave-like conditions, abused and exploited – without a dignified path back to their families.

Tamil Nadu is one of India’s richest states and the center of its textile industry, but with huge income inequalities. Relentless demand for textiles and insufficient transparency fuel a 24-hour production industry hungry for cheap labor with little government oversight. Workers’ basic rights are frequently disregarded while widespread poverty and lack of alternatives drive young workers to the looms and mills, often in remote locations. Gender and caste-based discrimination, illness-related debts, family difficulties, lack of education and high drop-out rates all exacerbate girls’ vulnerability.

Despite rapid economic growth, Ethiopia remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Bouts of famine, floods, human rights abuses and armed conflicts have exacerbated the fast growing population’s vulnerability to trafficking, unsafe migration and slavery. The most vulnerable are women and girls from rural areas where poverty, disease, child marriage, domestic violence, and lack of education and employment options drive tens of thousands to journey to the Middle East as domestic servants. The majority migrate illegally with no protection against exploitation 'en route' or at destination. Those who return are often traumatized and ostracized. 

The Freedom Fund’s Southern India hotspot will build a systemic response to the exploitation of garment workers, allowing communities to identify and address abuse, and promote awareness of workers’ rights in the workplace. The hotspot engages with owners, managers and recruitment brokers to extend incentives for legal and decent work into higher tiers of the Tamil Nadu textile industry.

The hotspot’s reach will expand to include source districts in other states from where young workers migrate. And it will provide enhanced support for frontline facilitators who work with communities to strengthen resilience and raise awareness. Creating communities of practice among partners, establishing support groups and promoting workers’ rights in mills have all proven to be effective approaches that will be deepened. The program will also offer a range of specialist technical support to partners, with particular emphasis on boosting advocacy skills.

The Freedom Fund’s Ethiopia hotspot will work towards three key objectives:

1. Making sure girls and young women better understand the risks of migration for domestic work and how to mitigate such risks.
2. Improving their economic prospects so they can make voluntary and informed decisions about their future.
3. Helping to create systems that promote safer migration and respond to migrant worker needs.

The program will work closely with returnees as agents of change, making effective use of community structures to educate entire communities and provide vocational and life skills training to boost resilience. The Freedom Fund will continue to support local partners to co-create policy and program solutions and to effectively communicate with decision-makers, fostering a network of safe migration advocates at the local and national levels. It will also advise and engage with officials and policy-makers to drive system change.