7 ways to increase the impact of anti-slavery interventions

There is no doubt that modern slavery is among the international development community’s toughest challenges. The clandestine nature of the industry makes it difficult to calculate the scale of the problem, which is exacerbated by the fact that many trafficking victims are forced into situations where they are seen and documented as criminals, such as in prostitution, or illegal immigrants. These have not stopped groups such as the Walk Free Foundation and the International Labor Organization from trying to measure the extent and impact of modern slavery worldwide. Forced labor alone, according to ILO’s 2014 report — so far the most comprehensive analysis of the industry’s net worth — generates $150.2 billion in illegal profits globally. Despite this, Free the Slaves Communications Director Terry Fitzpatrick said the scale of resources currently dedicated to anti-slavery efforts is nowhere near enough to match the scope of the problem. One possible reason for this is because anti-trafficking is not among the Millennium Development Goals, which have largely driven donor spending, Sarah Mendelson, director of the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Devex. So how much have donors spent on anti-slavery efforts? Only members of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have reliable anti-slavery aid spending data, Walk Free Foundation Fund Analyst Martina Ucnikova explained in a study recently published by the Anti-Trafficking Review. She told Devex that the difference in terminology used by countries to describe modern slavery makes it challenging to gather and compare data. For example, France and Germany use “human trafficking” or “trafficking in persons,” while the U.K. government is shifting toward using “modern slavery.” Further, countries do not always have granular and comprehensive data on international development spending in general nor is there a universal aid reporting system. But by analyzing the aid spending data of 12 donors, Ucnikova and her team found that these countries allocated less than 1 percent of their cumulative development assistance from 2003 to 2012 to modern slavery — or just $1.2 billion. Funding was channeled primarily to anti-slavery efforts in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, both U.N. trust funds dedicated to fighting modern slavery — the U.N. Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking and the U.N. Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery — receive relatively little funding, especially when compared with the annual budgets of other U.N. trust Funds. These two trust funds have a cumulative annual budget of about $1 million, which covers programs, grants and overheads. Clearly, for Ucnikova, these two trust funds do not have the institutional gravity to play a greater global role in combating human trafficking. All these illustrate just how underfunded the anti-slavery fight is. What then can donors and implementing partners do to ensure these scarce aid resources will create maximum impact? 1. Demand rigorous impact evaluation. Little is known about the impact of aid spending on anti-trafficking because “the sector lacks accountability and transparency about where spending goes, much less what it achieves,” Rebecca Napier-Moore, editor of the Anti-Trafficking Review, shared to Devex. Very few projects undergo rigorous impact evaluation by an external evaluator, Napier-Moore added. And of those that are externally evaluated, the wider and unintended impact of the project is not given meaningful attention. It is easier to ask, “How many people attended this workshop, or received education materials, or received microcredit funds?” But Fitzpatrick stresses that impact, or how these interventions reduced the prevalence of slavery, needs to be measured as well, something that is costly and more difficult for implementing partners — especially the smaller ones — to do. At the technical level, baselines and counterfactuals are hard to establish, Napier-Moore explained. Beyond this, however, impact evaluations may uncover unintended consequences or show a lack of real impact, neither of which helps organizations raise more money or maintain good relations with donors or the general public. Nonetheless, donors should demand for rigorous impact evaluation. 2. Make room for innovation and flexibility. Although slavery has been around for centuries, there is a dearth of proven solutions and tools to curb the problem so there should be space for innovation, Ed Marcum, vice president for investments at Humanity United, told Devex. While it is understandable for donors to fall back on safe investments and reputable organizations, there is value in supporting creative solutions, testing new approaches and engaging small players that may be closer to the ground. Vincent Tournecuillert, regional child protection adviser for the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan at the Terre des Hommes Foundation, shared that in his experience, private foundations were likely to encourage innovation and were more open to risk and change. The Oak Foundation was flexible and supported the start of TdH’s anti-child trafficking project between Albania and Greece, when no one else was willing to trust in advance and finance the initiative. Examining trafficking in the context of “children on the move” is a paradigm shift from the usual conflation of complex child protection concerns with general migration issues in border security policies, Tournecuillert explained. While not politically attractive, it is an important innovation to fully protect children in situations of mobility, as it requires states to treat irregular migrants who are minors with care. “If there is reason to believe a migrant is a minor, the first response should be to consider what is best for the child, then to understand the full story behind the act, and to accommodate and protect the child at all cost,” he said. “It is important to first check for vulnerability, but this doesn’t always happen.” The Oak Foundation, however, has funded more regional projects to support children on the move. For more grounded and unconventional strategies to be explored, donors need to give their partners some freedom instead of dictating priorities, Cecilia Flores-Oebanda, executive director of the Visayan Forum Foundation, added. 3. Anticipate new vulnerabilities. Any intervention that restricts or enhances labor mobility is likely to have unintended consequences. Napier-Moore said it is essential to investigate difficult questions such as whether increased public awareness of trafficking has resulted in discrimination against returned trafficked persons, especially women, because trafficking is heavily associated with sex work, which is judged negatively, or whether after learning about trafficking, states do more to help people realize their rights to livelihood or restrict migration. Either can be construed as a way to reduce trafficking, but both have different effects on human rights, she explained. The reduction of slavery in one country may also coincide with an increase elsewhere. Tournecuillert said that freedom of movement is good, but it may have “side effects” especially if the countries involved are at different stages of economic development. For example, prior to Romania’s accession to the European Union, there was pervasive sex trafficking of Albanian women into Italy. Upon Romania’s accession, Romanian women were trafficked into Italy because of ease of entry into the Schengen area. There is also a similar pattern for child beggars. After the accession of Central European states to the European Unions, there was an immediate increase in the number of children begging in the streets of France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands. There is a need to be conscious of these consequences, especially to protect children at risk of exploitation. “If you burn boats, people will use trucks. If you block borders, people will pass through mountains,” Tournecuillert said. Traffickers are flexible and donors’ funding structures have to be responsive to these changes. 4. Interventions should be rights-based and victim-centric. Tools to assess the human rights impact of anti-trafficking measures already exist and should be mainstreamed, but there is always tension between enforcing border laws and upholding human rights. Repressive measures may reduce the number of visible victims in the short term but if interventions do not focus on rehabilitating victims and ensuring that they are in a better position, they are vulnerable to being re-trafficked and the cycle repeats itself, Flores-Oebanda said. For example, Napier-Moore said anti-trafficking money should not be used to contribute to human rights violations, such as preventing women’s migration. Oak Foundation believes in trusting survivors to provide input on how to stop slavery instead of simply speaking on their behalf. The foundation has a history of supporting survivors and groups likely to be affected by anti-trafficking policies led by agricultural laborers, sex workers and domestic workers, and letting them take the lead in advocating policies that influence their lives. 5. Improve coordination among donors and across borders. Bilateral donors are inclined to serve their own foreign policy interests and their priorities are also more linked to their own problems, Tournecuillert said. Greater coordination will help donors avoid redundancy in projects and programs and identify priority areas. Taking a page from the playbook of global health donors or emerging donor partnerships to address climate change, the Freedom Fund aims to reduce slavery through greater coordination. Donors may not have an incentive to collaborate for most projects and many of them work on different dimensions of the problem. What Freedom Fund seeks to do is direct more private donors to the modern slavery issue by creating a space for them to come together and realize the linkages across their work streams. For example, donors working on poverty alleviation or international migration will bring valuable expertise to the table in dealing with child trafficking. Tournecuillert also explained that donors should acknowledge that funds are needed to work across borders and financing frameworks need to be harmonized. For example, organizations that work in Spain, France, the United Kingdom and Belgium also need to be able to work in Guinea, Mali, Senegal and Morocco to follow the path of people at risk. When borders are closed or financial frameworks are incompatible, nongovernmental organizations are less effective. Traffickers’ networks do not have such limitations. 6. Follow the money. Trafficking is currently a low-risk, high-profit industry — an equation that needs to be reversed. One way is for states to work together to enact transborder regulations against money laundering. Another way is to address the “demand side” of slavery. In a world where companies are made to feel that slavery is a business risk because it triggers a backlash from consumers and potential investors, they will self-regulate. This can be achieved through legislation such as the landmark California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, which requires certain businesses to disclose the efforts they are making to eradicate human trafficking and slavery from their supply chains. Other consumer tools such as product labeling and slavery footprint metrics and general engagement with corporations could help as well. 7. Target support to other vulnerable demographics. While it is true that women make up close to half of the detected trafficking victims, there are other vulnerable groups that donors may be overlooking. The 2014 U.S. Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons report highlighted the vulnerabilities of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. As a result of the criminalization of their gender identity or grave stigma against them, they are likely to suffer from economic marginalization and homelessness, and lack social support structures, which make them easy prey for traffickers. The reality of male victims, long invisible from conversations about trafficking, is recently being exposed. In a previous Devex article, Flores-Oebanda discussed her NGO’s experience with exploited fishermen and agricultural workers, noting that more needs to be done to address their needs. Awareness and prevention efforts need to be targeted at these groups and law enforcement officials and service providers need to be retrained to recognize potential slavery situations involving them. There are currently very few shelters that accept male victims, and this is another gap donors can fill. 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