Fighting Slavery from Space

Day 2: Fighting Slavery from Space

Wouldn’t it be fun and fulfilling to use satellites to fight slavery? Well, some people are doing exactly that—and so can you! Researchers and charities are starting to use satellite imagery to map human rights violations around the world—including slavery. Freedom Fortnight’s Tate Johnston explains in the video above.

Here’s where you come in: The Slavery from Space project allows you to contribute to fighting slavery through the mapping of potential enslavement sites. This will provide intelligence to those providing aid on the ground, and help the policy and decision-makers to understand the processes that enable slavery at a larger scale.

Join us now in the University of Nottingham’s specially-designed mapping exercise to map slavery in India from space! Researchers are focusing on an area of Rajasthan in India where their experience tells them there is a lot of slavery in brick kilns. They need you to mark every brick kiln you see in a satellite image. The mapping you do will directly impact efforts to root out slavery on the ground. There are full instructions at the site.

EXTRA CREDIT: You can also watch this brief video, in which Professors Stuart Marsh and Kevin Bales discuss the geospatial imaging of slavery hotspots in particular regions as a solution to ending slavery. This video is one of the lessons from our upcoming anti-slavery online course in partnership with Nottingham. If you are interested in learning more in-depth about subjects like this from experts in the field, you can pre-register for our online course. We will let you know when we launch the course.