For more information about CHTCS and how we can help your organization, please contact us.

For more information about CHTCS and how we can help your organization, please contact us.

In Bangalore, India, back-to-back rescue missions helped save 155 people subjected to forced labor for three years at incense factories. The International Justice Mission (IJM) received a call on May 28 from a police officer in Bangalore, asking for help with a planned rescue operation at one incense factory. The IJM immediately sent a team to rescue the 107 laborers that were trafficked more than 800 miles.

Each man shared their horror stories, revealing that, “they were forced to work seven days a week from 6am until 2am, some having to handle dangerous chemicals.” The laborers also said that they were physically abused by the owner, and prohibited from medical attention. All 107 laborers shared a single room with just one toilet.

Two of the rescued men said that their brothers were being held at a nearby factory in Tamil Nadu, where the IJM luckily had two officers nearby. Another team was mobilized and able to rescue 48 more forced laborers in Tamil. “As we searched the facility I was totally flabbergasted, shocked, amazed. There was no electricity; the room was pitch dark. I was using the flashlight on my phone, searching the factory but finding nothing. Eventually, in one of the smaller rooms, I saw a bunch of people crammed together in the dark,” said Sam George, IJM Director of Aftercare.

IJM has since focused on the aftercare of the laborers, who received government release certificates, ensuring their freedom. They were then returned to their families while the owner, one trafficker, and three employees of the Bangalore factory were arrested.

For more information about CHTCS and how we can help your organization, please contact us.

For more information about CHTCS and how we can help your organization, please contact us.

KnowTheChain has partnered with some of the biggest counter-human trafficking nonprofits and organizations to encourage companies that fall under the criteria for the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act (SB-657) to comply with the law’s requirements. KnowTheChain also takes the initiative to contact those companies who have not yet complied with the law to notify them of the law and its requirements.

Currently the law requires “retail sellers and manufacturers doing business in California that exceed $100 million in global revenue to publicly disclose the degree, if any, to which they are: engaging in verification, auditing, and certification of their direct suppliers, maintaining internal accountability standards, and providing internal training regarding trafficking in their direct supply chains for tangible goods offered for sale.”

Find out which companies have and have not complied with the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act: KnowTheChain.

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Last Wednesday, the European Commission outlined its new migration policy at a news conference held in Brussels, Belgium. The new policy will “enforce rules on asylum as border countries struggled to deal with unprecedented numbers of people trying to reach the continent, fleeing conflict or poverty in the Middle East and Africa.” The EU has been silent about this issue, but recently decided to take responsibility and take action to implement their new policy along with the existing ones that haven’t been applied properly. The new agenda for refugee’s settlement would cost about 50 million euros ($56 million) projected for 2015-16. The Commission emphasized the need to share responsibility amongst the EU members, with the exception of United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark, to remove the burden from the two most popular destinations, Italy and Greece.

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For more information about CHTCS and how we can help your organization, please contact us.

In late April, the Bangalore branch of the International Justice Mission (IJM) was invited by Indian officials to join an operation to find close to 60 suspected victims of human trafficking that had been reported missing by relatives from the Indian state of Orissa. Indian police officials believed that the missing relatives from Orissa were being held in two targeted brick kilns, however when IJM and the Indian police arrived, there was no one to be found. In what appears to be a stroke of luck, “the official in charge from Orissa instead decided to enter a few nearby brick factories and make sure the workers there were rightfully employed” said IJM Bangalore’s Esther Daniel. “What we found shocked us. Dozens of people were inside, afraid and desperate to leave.”

IJM and the local police took the women, children, and men to a nearby community center to provide them with care and determine whether the missing Orissa families were among the rescued. In the days following, 7 of the families reported missing from Orissa were found. Four of the families had run away from the brick kiln the day of the rescue operation, while three other families were forced to board a train back to Orissa the morning before by the factory’s owner, after he was most likely tipped off about the looming rescue operation. “The families shared how they had been forced to work up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week. They were isolated from any kind of support network, hundreds of miles away from their home state. The rigid rules were enforced with violence and threats.”

Thanks to IJM and the Indian police officials, a total of 260 people were rescued from modern slavery andreturned to their families in Orissa.

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For more information about CHTCS and how we can help your organization, please contact us.