NEW DELHI (Sputnik) — The Indian government is mulling an action plan to debunk independent global research that seeks to establish India as home to the most number of modern slaves. Local media reports suggested that the research conducted by Walk Free Foundation — an anti-slavery organization founded by Australia's richest man Andrew Forrest — was brought to the government's attention by the country's intelligence organizations.
The intelligence input, accessed and published by local media, warns the government that Forrest's foundation has "potential to substantially harm India's image and exports," calling for immediate counter propaganda measures for damage control.
Acc. to Walk Free Foundation's 2014 Global Slavery Index. More than 14 million adults and children are trapped in modern slavery in India.
— shikha sharma (@shikasharma91) 1 августа 2016 г.
The Walk Free Foundation report estimates the global population of modern slaves at 40.3 million in 2016. Successive research on the basis of the report had established that the largest number of modern slaves in the world were in India, with numbers ranging from 14 million to 18 million.
#India is home to #40% of the world's #46millionslaves, according to the Global Slavery Index 2016 established by Walk Free Foundation.
— MRDOM1730 (@MRDOM1730) 27 января 2017 г.
The Indian intelligence agency has questioned the veracity of the statistics and has alerted the government that the Walk Free Foundation and other researchers could be "targeting" India to establish the country as a modern slavery hub. It has pointed out that the study interviewed 17,000 people in India but only 2,000 in countries such as Russia, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
The Walk Free Foundation on slavery index put that of 167 countries, India had by far the greatest number of slaves.
— Dr. Ravi K Mahajan (@mahajan_rk) 18 ноября 2014 г.
Fiona David, the global head of the Walk Free Foundation, however, has defended the integrity of the figures brought out in the report.
This is not the first time that actions against NGOs have been taken by the Indian intelligence agencies. In 2014, on the basis of an intelligence report, international NGOs including Greenpeace were accused of costing India 2-3 percent of GDP by sponsoring protests against genetically modified food and coal-based power plants. Restrictions were put on foreign funding on several NGOs soon after the Narendra Modi led BJP government came to power and international NGOs like the Ford Foundation were affected due to the measures. One of the largest charity organizations in India — the US Christian group Compassion International was closed down due to such restrictions.
The report defines modern slavery as people involved in forced child labor, those caught in trafficking, debt bondage and other vulnerable populations.
