In 2019, the Rights Lab at the University of Nottingham launched a new collection of survivor testimony, named Voices: Narratives by Survivors of Modern Slavery. The work to gather these narratives was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Antislavery Usable Past project and the AHRC/Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Antislavery Knowledge Network project.
Representing 900+ survivor voices from around the world and continuing to grow, the database is publicly available for use by the global community that is working towards Target 8.7 of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): to end modern slavery by 2030.
The purpose of this report is to suggest a guide for how to use this groundbreaking collection of survivor testimony for antislavery work. The report is split into three sections. The first covers the database itself; the second relies on testimony from survivors in Sub-Saharan Africa, Cambodia, Pakistan and North Korea to show how survivor testimony can help to answer questions about slavery definitions, causes, interventions and aftermath; and the third section is a case study about forced marriage, highlighting how survivor narratives can shape our understanding of the practice.
In selecting sample narratives, we focused on countries that, according to the Walk Free Foundation’s Global Slavery Index, have the top 10 highest prevalence rates of slavery (including North Korea, Pakistan, Cambodia, Eritrea, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Burundi).
Rights Lab Research Fellow Hannah-Rose Murray authored this report for the Antislavery Usable Past and Antislavery Knowledge Network teams, with input from Vicky Brotherton and Zoe Trodd.
To view the Voices narratives, visit: www.antislavery.ac.uk/narratives