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Can anti-trafficking to move beyond the ‘victim’ label? [1]
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Date: 2023-06
Members of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) have long worked with survivors to shape their work. Some were even surprised when we asked them if they involve people with lived experience – for them it was self-obvious. Others explained that engaging with survivors is a risky business, and that the countries they operate in have even deported non-nationals for speaking up against harmful policies.
Since August, we have been interviewing our members about their histories, programmes, target groups, successes, challenges, and more. We particularly wanted to know about the role of survivors in project implementation and decision making. The results so far – from around 30 NGOs – showed a diverse range of practices and contexts. We’ve summarised some of the responses here, in an early look at our findings.
Looking the part
At least seven groups have survivors of trafficking, migrants, or sex workers in their staff and on their boards. They are not always there because of what their lived experience brings to policy or programme development. At times it has more to do with ensuring a culturally sensitive environment for their clients. As Anita Teekah from Safe Horizon’s anti-trafficking programme said, “I want to make sure that our workers look like the clients we’re serving.”
Teekah explained that her team intentionally has social workers of different genders, migrant backgrounds, and sexual orientations because clients feel more comfortable disclosing their experiences to counsellors who are like them. Isabella Chen from LEFÖ in Austria made a similar point. “In Europe, a lot of the organisations are very white and may only work with migrant women when they need a translator,” she said. “We have many colleagues working here from different backgrounds who often have experience of migration themselves.”
Cultivating leadership
Some groups have empowered survivors to be leaders within their organisations. Only Safe Horizon mentioned having a “survivor leadership group”, whose members meet every month and discuss “what needs they have that we haven’t met yet”. An example of one such need was support for tuition fees. In response to this feedback, the group secured funding to pay for survivors’ education and that of their dependants in origin countries. “The hope is that if they have a strong academic foundation and become more competitive in the job market domestically, they won’t need to migrate for work if they don't want to,” Teekah said.
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/its-time-for-anti-trafficking-to-move-beyond-the-victim-label/
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