Develop and invest in programmes that offer livelihood options, including basic education, skills training and digital and financial literacy. Ensure that every child has access to education and school attendance, especially girls.
Human trafficking thrives in the shadows — but so does the work to stop it.
The Congregation of Jesus and our global network work on the ground to end trafficking, strengthening prevention, providing care and rehabilitation, and helping victim-survivors reclaim their rights.
Drawing on this frontline experience, our new policy paper tackles six critical fronts in the fight against trafficking and labour exploitation:
- Technology and Human Trafficking
- Human Trafficking Routes
- Vulnerability of Women and Children
- Labour Exploitation
- Access to Legal Justice and Human Rights
- Human Trafficking and Climate Change
These findings come directly from communities across Asia, Europe, and North America — where our network sees the realities of trafficking, and the path to ending it, up close.
Our recommendations are:
- Use large-scale digital campaigns providing accurate information about immigration programs and legal procedures, and the rights of migrants and refugees, as a strategy to counter scammers and disinformation from human trafficking gangs.
- Increase cross-border collaboration along known trafficking routes. Strengthen surveillance and intelligence-sharing between countries to allow law enforcement agencies to exchange information on international trafficking routes and intercept criminal groups.
- Develop and invest in programmes that offer livelihood options, including basic education, skills training and digital and financial literacy. Ensure that every child has access to education and school attendance, particularly for girls.
- Treat workers who are victims of labour exploitation as victims of human trafficking, rather than as criminals—ensuring them full access to the restitution of their human rights.
- Strengthen measures to reduce transnational crimes involving the exploitation of workers through fraudulent recruitment strategies.
- Replace closed work permits for temporary foreign workers with open permits that guarantee their human and labour rights, and allow them to change employers when they deem it necessary.
- Strengthen strategies for victim identification and referral, including actions such as training for frontline officials as well as victim care centres, labour inspectors, asylum petition officials, and health workers.
- Ensure victims receive adequate legal representation, ensure protection from criminal persecution and prosecution, and strengthen collaboration between the government and civil society organizations to enhance prevention measures and support to victim-survivors.
- Laws and policies on internal displacement and migration should recognize climate change as a factor and explicitly address the needs of affected victims by ascribing to them fundamental rights, social protections, and compensation.
Read our Position Paper AQUÍ.
