London: A UK government backed fund set up to combat modern day slavery across the world has announced a grant of up to 800,000 pounds each for a new set of projects, including one in India.  The Modern Slavery Innovation Fund (MSIF) supports international projects to find innovative ways of stopping modern slavery. The MSIF on Friday announced up to GBP 800,000 each for projects across the world, including to the Freedom Fund working in India, a senior official 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,” said Nick Grono, CEO of the Freedom Fund.  He said that 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 coordinate more effectively and provide greatly improved personalised care to victims and their families,” he added.  The latest funding marks the second phase of the MSIF and will run until 2021. The first phase of the fund totalled 6 million pounds and supported 10 projects between March 2017 and 2019.