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I received this email a few days ago:

Dear Maria, My name is Krishna Upadhyaya. Just a few days ago you were one of 54,034 people that called for my safe release after myself and my colleague Gundev Ghimire went missing in Qatar. I’m relieved to tell you that I’ve been home in the UK with my family since Friday and wanted to take the time to write and thank you personally for your support. I’ve always felt it was important to stand up against injustice. As a young man, I was involved in speaking, organising and protesting even when this was illegal in my home country of Nepal. This desire to defend human rights is what brought me to Qatar, to speak to migrant workers who had experienced harassment, been forced to work without pay and risked their health due to excessive working hours in extreme heat. It’s these activities which led to myself and Gundev being arrested and detained in solitary confinement for 9 days. However I do not feel any ill will against those that arrested me. I hope that in some modest way my case can continue to shine a light on the problems that face migrant workers, not just in Qatar, but also in their home countries like Nepal where exploitative recruitment practices leave many vulnerable to abuse and modern slavery. The work of anti-slavery activists such as yourself is vitally important. Thank you again for your efforts to ensure my safe release. Keep doing what you do in the fight for freedom — you’ve shown that together we really can make a difference. In solidarity, Krishna and the whole Walk Free team P.S. I hope my case inspires you to know that you’ve made a difference. Why not take the opportunity to encourage more people to join the fight to end modern slavery once and for all by asking 3 of your friends to join Walk Free today? Please forward the message below to help make our community even stronger. ——————————————————————————

Hi there, Researchers Krishna Upadhyaya and Gundev Ghimire were detained and held in solitary confinement for 9 days after investigating the forced labour of migrant workers in Qatar. After 54,034 people sent messages of support to the Qatari authorities, they were released. As Krishna himself said to Walk Free supporters on his return: »I hope my case inspires you to know that you’ve made a difference… keep doing what you do in the fight for freedom». Please join me in this fight by signing up to campaign for an end to modern slavery with Walk Free: http://www.walkfree.org/a-world-without-slavery/?utm_source=taf&utm_medium=email&utm_content=24sept14&utm_campaign=a-world-without-slavery Thank you.

Walk Free is a movement of people everywhere, fighting to end one of the world’s greatest evils: Modern slavery.

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Αγαπητοί μου φίλοι είμαι πολύ χαρούμενη να μοιραστώ μαζί σας ότι ο φρικτός νόμος στο Ιρακ για τον οποίο έκανα κι εγώ ένα ψήφισμα και πολλοί από σας το υπογράψατε και σας ευχαριστώ, ΔΕΝ ΝΟΜΙΜΟΠΟΙΗΘΗΚΕ. Εκατοντάδες χιλιάδες μηνύματα είχαν κατακλύσει τους φορείς της χώρας. Όλοι μαζί μπορούμε και κάνουμε τη διαφορά.

Δείτε το μήνυμα που μου έστειλαν και μοιραστείτε το κι εσείς με τους φίλους σας.

Dear Maria,

We’re getting in touch because you recently took action to help stop Forced Child Marriage in Iraq.

There has been some good news on this issue and we wanted to share it with you: the Jaafari Personal Status Law (which would have legalised Forced Child Marriage in Iraq) was not approved by Parliament in the lead up to the 30 April election¹ as we feared, having been approved by the Council of Ministers in February².

The Walk Free community responded to these shocking developments in unprecedented style: sending 645,157 emails to Iraqi leaders in total. We believe this strong support played a role in delaying the passage of this law.

Will you celebrate this progress with us? Iraq is going through a very difficult time at the moment but we must not lose focus on protecting children from forced marriage. Spreading this good news will help keep attention on the movement against Forced Child Marriage and energise our friends and family to join the next stage of the campaign.

I’ll share on Facebook.

I’ll share on Twitter.

We believe the massive groundswell of support for ending child marriage played a key role in preventing the law from being presented to Parliament before the Government dissolved, and this lost our opponents a key opportunity. While the new Government is forming we’ll be closely monitoring this issue and planning the next stages of the campaign. We want to build on this momentum to ensure the Jaafari Personal Status Law is rejected permanently.

Together, we helped prevent Forced Child Marriage from being legalised at a critical time in Iraqi politics. Please share this success with others so our movement is stronger than ever and ready for the challenge to come.

Thank you for your support so far.

In solidarity,

Debra, Sarah, Joanna, Jayde, Kate and the Walk Free Team

P.S. On Twitter? Follow Walk Free!