The Global Slavery Index 2023

Regional: Africa (Part 3)

​Freedom through faith 
Faith leaders play an important role to identify, prevent, and remediate modern slavery in their communities. They occupy a unique position as they can see into the hearts of communities and are often a trusted source of information and advice. 
 
Faith leaders, together with faith-based organisations already working to protect vulnerable people, can empower their communities to act by providing them with the information and tools to understand modern slavery. Walk Free, through its faith-based arm the Global Freedom Network, works with religious leaders across the world to address modern slavery. 
 
In 2014, faiths leaders from many Christian denominations, including Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox, and representatives of Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim faiths came together to sign the “Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders Against Modern Slavery,” pledging to do everything in their power to eradicate modern slavery. Since then, more than 100 of the world’s most influential faith leaders from the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania have also pledged to help end modern slavery. The Global Freedom Network is developing a range of tools to support their efforts. 
 
One tool, the Faith for Freedom smartphone app, was developed in consultation with a faith leaders advisory panel and gives faith leaders and their staff information on how to identify, respond to, and prevent modern slavery within their communities. The app has been launched in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, and will expand to other countries. 
 
“As faith leaders...you can see changes in people that would pass many others by. And you understand what poverty and desperation can do to men, women, and children. So you are uniquely placed to identify victims and help victims by putting them in touch with professionals who can help them and who can help deal with the perpetrators.” Sheikh Armiyawo Shaibu, spokesperson for Ghana’s national chief Imam addressing fellow faith leaders at a Global Freedom Network event in Ghana, 2021 
 
Promising Practices in Africa 
Over 20 per cent of evaluated programs housed in the Promising Practices Database are delivered in Africa. These programs cover 42 countries in the region and target several types of modern slavery, including human trafficking, forced, servile or early marriage, the worst forms of child labour, and the use of child soldiers or exploitation of children by armed groups. Awareness-raising awareness campaigns and formal education were the most common interventions delivered in the evaluated programs. Overall, more than 80 per cent of programs delivered in Africa met some or all of their objectives, yet only 13 evaluated programs had a reliable evaluation methodology, scoring 3 or above on the Maryland Scale. 
 
Spotlight on what works 
An evaluation of the impact of two government-run unconditional cash transfers programs on early marriage and fertility rates in Malawi and Zambia raises interesting questions about the role of cash transfers in tackling modern slavery. The evaluation found that the impact on safe transition of youth aged 14 to 21 to adulthood (i.e., delayed pregnancy and marriage) was limited in both countries, with the exception of protective impact on marriage for male youth in Malawi.56 This might point to the limited impact of cash transfers; however, the Promising Practices Database57 and other systematic reviews have found that cash transfers are some of the most promising interventions, particularly when viewed as part of a multisectoral and holistic suite of interventions. 
 
Recommendations for Governments
Ensure support services are available for all survivors of modern slavery — women, men, and children — and that these support services are appropriately resourced. 
 
The governments of Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Mali, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe should immediately end state-imposed forced labour by repealing legislation and criminalising practices that allow it to occur. 
 
Raise the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 without exception and support the economic empowerment of women and girls through increasing access to education and providing community empowerment programming. 
 
Strengthen social protections, such as birth registration, access to education, unemployment insurance, universal healthcare, and sick leave to reduce vulnerability to forced marriage and to provide workers with basic income security. Extend social protection to workers in the informal sector in particular. 
 
Identify sectors at high risk of forced labour and work with businesses and civil society to develop initiatives to eradicate forced labour and labour exploitation.
 
Walk Free 2023. Global Slavery Index 2023. Minderoo Foundation Ltd. Australia.