Preventing human trafficking: Positive Deviance methodology in practice

NGO, reports

This document discusses experiences in developing and implementing a trafficking prevention project in a town in Albania, inspired by and drawing on a particular approach to behavioural and social change called “positive deviance” (PD). It is intended as a resource for practitioners working in the field of trafficking prevention and it is hoped that it can be useful for others who are considering implementing a similar approach or methodology.

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On the Frontlines: Operationalizing Good Practice in TIP Data Collection

NGO, reports

Combatting trafficking in persons (TIP) requires evidence-based knowledge – to effectively target prevention efforts, design appropriate protection interventions or pursue effective prosecutions. This requires methodologically rigorous, reliable and ethical data collection as well as objective and insightful analysis and use of that data. It also requires guarding against weak or faulty data, which has the potential to cause disproportionate harm, including to trafficking victims, when used to design or support ill-conceived and ungrounded public policy and programmatic interventions on TIP.

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Getting to Good Human Trafficking Data: Everyday Guidelines for Frontline Practitioners in Southeast Asia

Academic, reports

This guide is the result of in-person interviews conducted over a period of three months with anti- trafficking practitioners from both government and civil society in four Southeast Asian nations, with additional input from international experts both on human trafficking and data management. These meetings were aimed at identifying promising practices and understanding the most significant challenges for those people doing the critical day-to-day work – from investigating cases to serving survivors – of the anti-trafficking movement.

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The Science (and Art) of Understanding Trafficking in Persons: Good Practice in TIP Data Collection

NGO, reports

This publication is part of a series of studies produced in the context of the NEXUS Institute’s research project entitled Good Practice in Global Data Collection on Trafficking in Persons: The Science (and Art) of Understanding TIP. The objective in this research series is to address the identification and elaboration of good practice in ways that will help guide organizations, institutions, researchers and others to strengthen their data collection and accelerate the collective acquisition of important knowledge about human trafficking.

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QUALITY AND RIGOR IN TIP RESEARCH IN THE MEKONG REGION: ASSESSING THE EVIDENCE BASE (2008-2018)

NGO, reports

This research review compiled published research on the issue of trafficking in persons (TIP) in five of the Mekong countries – Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam – between 2008 and 2018. This included both peer reviewed and “grey” literature4 accessed in library-based and internet searches according to a pre- determined set of criteria and based on specific keywords and research strings. They analyzed a total of 480 studies on trafficking in persons (TIP) in five of the Mekong countries published from 2008 to 2018.

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Endline research findings on fishers and seafood workers in Thailand

Government, reports

This endline survey shows the accomplishment of the integration between the public sector, employers, workers, and civil society, with a mutual ambition to prevent and eliminate trafficking in persons, child labour, forced labour, and unacceptable forms of work in Thailand’s fishing and seafood processing industries. Some of Thailand’s achievements have been revealed in the reports, such as the increasing of regular labour migration, lower costs for migration and higher wages. However, there are still gaps and challenges, and every partner in Thailand and neighbouring countries needs to work together to encourage fair and sustainable seafood industries along the global supply chains.

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Migrants and their vulnerability to human trafficking, modern slavery and forced labour

NGO, reports

Research suggests connections exist between migration and criminal forms of exploitation such as human trafficking, forced labour and modern slavery. Certainly, constellations of risk are seen in certain migrant communities and migration corridors. However, it is not known how many of the world’s estimated 40 million victims of modern slavery are also migrants.

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Murky waters: A qualitative assessment of modern slavery in the Pacific region

NGO, reports

While previous qualitative research has exposed select forms of modern slavery in the Pacific, this report provides a comprehensive assessment of modern slavery in the region. The report draws on existing peer-reviewed and grey literature, Walk Free’s 2019 assessment of action taken by governments to address modern slavery, as well as information gathered through semi-structured interviews with anti-slavery stakeholders in eight countries in the region: Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu.

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Uyghurs for sale: ‘Re-education’, forced labour and surveillance beyond Xinjiang

NGO, reports

The Chinese government has facilitated the mass transfer of Uyghur and other ethnic minority1 citizens from the far west region of Xinjiang to factories across the country. Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour, Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen. This report estimates that more than 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang to work in factories across China between 2017 and 2019, and some of them were sent directly from detention camps.

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Better Together? The Peril and Promise of Aggregate Litigation for Trafficked Workers

Academic, reports

This Note proposes a new litigation strategy for vindicating the rights of trafficked workers. It argues that class actions, an increasingly popular mechanism for holding traffickers liable, are insufficient. Through an original analysis of federal class actions predicated on the Traf- ficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), I show that courts are reluctant to certify classes of traf- ficked workers and that class actions too often fail. As an alternative to class actions, this Note suggests that state attorneys general invoke their common-law parens patriae power to bring suits against traffickers under the TVPA. This strategy would preserve many benefits of the aggregate- litigation model while sidestepping the challenging procedural terrain of the modern class action.

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Federal Human Trafficking Civil Litigation: 15 Years of the Private Right of Action

NGO, reports

Fifteen years ago, in October 2003, Congress passed a law allowing trafficking victims to recover civil damages for trafficking in federal courts. Trafficking survivors have brought a total of 299 cases under this provision, demanding justice from an array of defendants. This report analyzes a decade and a half of labor and sex trafficking civil litigation in federal courts. What are the trends, challenges, and innovations.? This report provides quantitative and qualitative assessments of the past 15 years of civil litigation under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003. It tracks the statute’s geographical reach, types of cases, victims’ countries of origin, methods of entry into the United States, case outcomes, and damages awards. Finally, the report identifies challenges that trafficking survivors continue to face as they fight to hold their traffickers accountable.

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USING THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOL UNDER CEDAW TO COMBAT HUMAN TRAFFICKING

NGO, reports

This toolkit builds upon the foundational guidance already published, focusing on CEDAW’s Optional Protocol and the potential for human trafficking individual complaints. The toolkit provides an overview of CEDAW and the Optional Protocol; a snapshot of the CEDAW Committee’s jurisprudence on human trafficking; and maps out strategies to use this mechanism to protect the rights of trafficked women and girls.

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Ending impunity, securing justice: Using strategic litigation to combat modern-day slavery and human trafficking

NGO, reports

The time has come to build an international network of lawyers and advocates who have the tools they need to bring the right cases to the right courts. In May 2015, the Freedom Fund and the Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center brought together leading human rights lawyers, advocates, and litigators from around the world for a meeting in London. The conversation centered on how best to bring strategic litigation against states and private actors in order to combat trafficking and modern-day slavery. This document shares many of the key issues discussed at the meeting, including important lessons learned from successful litigation. It also highlights a number of persistent gaps that must be bridged in order to identify, prepare, and successfully prosecute cases that can lead to systemic change.

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Third-party monitoring of child labour and forced labour during the 2019 cotton harvest in Uzbekistan

reports, U.N.

This report has been prepared by the International Labour Office pursuant to an agreement between the ILO and the World Bank to carry out third-party monitoring on the incidence of child labour and forced labour in the World Bank-financed projects in agriculture, water and education sectors in Uzbekistan. Third-party monitoring by the ILO was also undertaken and reported on annually since 2015.

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MODERN SLAVERY: THE DARK SIDE OF CONSTRUCTION

NGO, reports

Construction is a bipolar industry. On the public side, we create inspirational buildings, pushing the boundaries of architecture and technology; solving ever more difficult challenges. The dark side – the systematic exploitation of millions of vulnerable migrants – is rarely acknowledged, even by the clients and multinationals that commission and create our shiny new cities. Our sector is rife with human rights abuses. Bonded labour, delayed wages, abysmal working and living conditions, withholding of passports and limitations of movement are all forms of modern slavery.

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Department of Homeland Security Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking, the Importation of Goods Produced With Forced Labor, and Child Sexual Exploitation

Government, reports

The United States has declared it a national priority to end human trafficking, the importation of goods produced with forced labor, and child sexual exploitation. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is on the frontlines of this fight, protecting the country and collaborating with our partners to stop these crimes. To leverage all of our authorities in this fight, DHS developed a first-of-its-kind Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking, the Importation of Goods Produced with Forced Labor, and Child Sexual Exploitation. It represents our vision to end this urgent humanitarian issue, articulates the Department’s long-term approach for combating these crimes, and serves as a framework to prioritize our resources and monitor progress.

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Report of the OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings: New Challenges and New Opportunities

Government, reports

The Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings (OSR/CTHB) confronts human trafficking concretely and comprehen- sively, paying particular attention to its cross-dimensional nature and the OSCE’s focus on the intersection of secu- rity and human rights. Trafficking in human beings is not only a human rights violation but also a grave security concern. It generates cross-border and internal instability when the rule of law and human security are undermined through the exploitation of vulnerable people. Security and human rights in the OSCE region are threatened as long as the scourge of human trafficking persists.

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World Migration Report 2020

reports, U.N.

The long-term and growing body of evidence on migration and mobility shows that migration is in large part related to the broader global economic, social, political and technological transformations that are affecting a wide range of high-priority policy issues. As the processes of globalization deepen, these transformations increasingly shape our lives – in our workplaces, in our homes, in our social and spiritual lives – as we go about our daily routines. Increasing numbers of people are able to access information, goods and services from around the world because of the ongoing expansion in distance-shrinking technologies.

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STAMPING OUT EXPLOITATION IN TRAVEL: Benchmarking the Travel Industry’s Progress on Fighting Human Trafficking and the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children

NGO, reports

Stamping Out Exploitation in Travel is a benchmarking report that presents key findings and themes from a study of 70 companies in the travel industry on their initiatives to fight human trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of children. The report establishes a way to measure progress, identifies the baseline for their engagement, and highlights best practices to encourage cross-learning within the travel industry.

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Pathways to Justice: How grassroots organisations are harnessing the law to tackle modern slavery

NGO, reports

This report surveys the portfolio of legal work being carried out by the Freedom Fund’s NGO partners across seven modern slavery hotspots. Frontline legal interventions are classified into four key categories that respond to the issues that these organisations are trying to address – strengthening laws and regulations, supporting effective enforcement, building rights awareness and facilitating access to justice. The report focuses on the solutions that frontline NGOs have found, drawing out lessons from these interventions that are relevant to the wider anti-slavery community.

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