Who we are
Our international team includes statisticians, criminologists, lawyers, and international development experts, working to create and agitate for mass systems change, to address the root causes of slavery.
We are building a robust knowledge base to inform action, driving legislative change in key countries and harnessing the power of businesses and faiths.
Through a combination of direct implementation, grassroots community engagement, and working in partnership with faiths, businesses, academics, NGOs, and governments around the world, we work to address slavery and dismantle its core drivers.
Migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are subjected to the kafala system, a private migration sponsorship system in Gulf countries which exponentially increases the risk of labour exploitation, forced labour and trafficking.
Our story
Grace Forrest first visited Nepal as a student when she was 15, and returned a year later to live and work at a rehabilitation and rescue home for women and girls who been subjected to various forms of exploitation. Dismayed by what she had witnessed and the stories she had encountered, on her return she sat at her family’s kitchen table in Perth to discuss what the Forrests could do to alleviate, or play a role in ending, modern slavery. This kitchen table meeting led to the founding of Walk Free.
Not long after, Fortescue Metals Group, of which Andrew Forrest is Chairman, conducted a thorough audit of its supply chains. The company discovered that a contractor serving it and hundreds of other companies around the world used forced and bonded labour as a key part of its supply chains. Andrew determined to form a business-like global strategy to end modern slavery, and envisaged massive campaigns to emerge sequentially but rapidly embrace the entire world.
In 2010 Walk free was created. It is part of, and funded by, Minderoo Foundation, a modern philanthropic organisation working to arrest unfairness and create opportunities in Australia and around the world.
“It’s one thing to know about a terrible problem and not be able to fix it; it is another to know about the problem and have the means to do something about it.”
Andrew Forrest, Co-Founder of Walk Free
How we work
We independently and unashamedly agitate for change and pioneer research that reinforces the need for change in the world.
What is modern slavery?
Modern slavery is an umbrella term which encompasses several types of exploitation, including forced labour, human trafficking and forced marriage.