Abstract
One of the growing problems in today's world is the issue of human trafficking. While many governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) throughout the world try to help end this problem, a lack of coordination and communication amongst agencies is a major hindrance in their efforts. Many times, organizations do not have the capacity to help all the victims of trafficking or adequate resources to implement their desired prevention and awareness materials.
Most anti-trafficking efforts are preemptively reactive in nature, as immediacy of need to address the plight of detected trafficking victims takes precedence. Consecutively, little gets done to proactively stem the spread of trafficking, primarily due to lack of cooperation amongst different agencies. This is one area where project management can play a vital role. In this paper, we examine specifically the La Strada International, an NGO focused on anti-trafficking, and how its adoption of project management tools and partnerships with project stakeholders made them a successful organization in what is otherwise seems to be a losing battle. We then offer implications for project managers.
Introduction
“Ending human trafficking is not idealistic or naive. It is audacious.
And it is people of audacity who change the world.”
by Rob Morris, founder of love146.org
There are more people in slavery today than at any other time in human history. According to International Labour Organization (ILO), over 20 million human victims are currently trafficked around the world for sexual exploitation, forced labor, begging, petty crimes, removal of organs, and for other exploitative purposes (UNODC, 2012). Labeled by the United Nations as “slavery in the modern age,” today it is the third largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world after drugs and weapons trafficking (Interpol, 2012), with women and girls accounting for three-fourths of all trafficking victims detected globally (UNODC, 2012).
Human Trafficking Defined
Human trafficking is defined by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC, 2012) as the “recruitment, transport, transfer, harboring, or receiving a person through the use of force, coercion, or other means for the purpose of exploiting them” (UNODC, 2012). The root causes behind the spread of trafficking are many: poverty, inequality, weak laws, incompatibility of laws between countries, lack of resources to address trafficking such as inadequately trained or corrupt law enforcement, as well as a failure by governments to acknowledge the severity of the issue. Exhibit 1 depicts origin of victims trafficked to North America, Central America and the Caribbean as proportion of the total number of victims detected in the sub region during the 2007-2010 period (UNODC, 2012).
Particularly when it comes to anti-trafficking efforts, finances are a huge necessity that not only helps to keep organizations alive, but also provides for the support and services that the victims actually need. It is very expensive to provide and pay for all the services a victim needs in order to get their life back in order: therapy, legal counsel, housing, clothing, food, protection, skill training, etc. And these services, aside from just awareness-raising organizations, are why these organizations exist in the first place.
Exhibit 1: Origin of victims trafficked to North America, Central America and the Caribbean (as proportion of the total number of victims detected in the sub region) 2007-2010 (UNODC, 2012)
Human trafficking is prevalent in the United States today in terms of forced prostitution. The average age of entry into prostitution, where an estimated 100,000 American juveniles are victimized each year, is 12 to 14 years old. One of the most common examples of domestic human trafficking can be seen at giant sporting events, like the Super Bowl, which according to the attorney general is the single largest human trafficking incident in U.S. (Goldberg, 2013). While there has been much debate and argument over whether or not there is a sudden spike in trafficking/prostitution during major sporting events, law enforcement awareness and interest certainly increases. For example, The Florida Commission Against Human Trafficking estimated that around 10,000 women and minors were trafficked in for the Miami Super Bowl (Whitehead, 2011). One trafficker, Manuel A. Walcott, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for offering a 14-year-old girl as a “Super Bowl Special” during the 2009 game in Tampa. Undercover investigators were quoted a price of $300 for a 14-year-old and an 18-year-old pertaining to the “special” (Tampa Bay Times, 2010). While an increase in 10,000 trafficked people may seem like an exaggeration, a study done by Traffick911, an anti-trafficking organization, partnered with law enforcement during the 2011 Super Bowl that monitored online escort ads. They found that “such ads increased steadily from 135 on a Saturday in mid-January to 367 on the Saturday before the big game” (Cernansky, 2012). The same was shown for the Super Bowl in Indiana in 2012. On tracking ads on Backpage.com, there were 28 ads on January 26th, 118 ads on February 2nd, and 129 ads on February 3rd, the weekend of the Super Bowl (The Indiana Attorney General, 2012).
The biggest issue in sustainability, not necessarily for the sake of the literal organization, but for the sake of the victims, is the necessity of cooperation amongst different anti-trafficking agencies. As such, partnerships are perhaps the biggest sustainability issue. To successfully help victims, prosecute offenders, agencies need to work together; but, unfortunately due to organizational culture, many do not. One example of this is the police force working closely together with legal counsel and victim service providers. Victim service providers are places that specifically aid in providing housing, counseling services, legal services, and skill trainings to victims of trafficking. They are greatly needed because the police always have a limited budget and limited resources in what they can do for victims. An interesting and successful example of this is the services of Trident Response Group. They can be contracted to provide intelligence about possible prostitution/trafficking operations. This group's services can be very vital to police forces that do not have the funds, capacity, time, or manpower to perform operations that require gathering intelligence. If more organizations created these kinds of partnerships, many more people would have the opportunity to be rescued.
According to Jane Mosbacher Morris, Director of Humanitarian Action of the McCain Institute for International Leadership, “Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, yet the social sector remains focused on the isolated intervention of individual organizations. Substantially greater progress could be made in alleviating many of our most serious and complex social problems if nonprofits, governments, businesses, and the public were brought together around a common agenda to create collective impact” (Morris, 2013). In this case, sustainability is not necessarily about having funding to run programs, but working together to try and provide the best possible services to the victims to collectively make stronger policy and to prosecute offenders. Since human trafficking in Europe commonly involves the transportation of people from one country to another, it is important to build partnerships with coalitions, legal firms, and policy makers to create a uniform understanding of penalties for offenders, services, and compensation for victims, and migration laws to law enforcement.
Case Study: The International La Strada Association
Because human trafficking is such a major issue, there are many NGOs working to try and help stop it. One of the most proactive NGOs in Europe is called The International La Strada Association. La Strada began in 1995 and is comprised of eight member organizations located in countries where trafficking is more prevalent. These member countries are Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Poland, Belarus, the Netherlands, Moldova, and Ukraine. The organization, based in Amsterdam, creates partnerships with other organizations by focusing on international networking through lobbying and advocacy programs, as well as producing common policies and action plans with various national and international organizations, national governments, European institutions and UN bodies. La Strada's main activities as an organization are improving public policy and research, providing preventive, informational, and educational activities against trafficking, providing social assistance to victims, and having a working hotline that anyone can call and address questions or concerns relating to trafficking or abuse.
According to the organization's website, “La Strada's philosophy, guiding its anti-trafficking work and its provision of services, is based on a human rights approach, demanding equal human rights for all human beings. The mission of La Strada International is to improve the position of women and to promote their universal rights, including the right to choose to emigrate and work abroad and to be protected from violence and abuse” (La Strada International, 2012). It adopts a multi-pronged approach to pursue its anti-trafficking efforts. Main initiatives include activities towards (i) policy reform, (ii) preventative, educational, and informational campaigns, (iii) social assistance, and (iv) hotline.
Policy Reform: Some of the crucial policy reform work in which La Strada participates is the research and improvement of public and state policy, such as migration policies. For the problem to be correctly addressed, the government first needs to be aware of the issue. For example, La Strada Ukraine has participated in the development and adoption of anti-trafficking laws, the National Action Plan for gender equality, and worked on the State Programs on Combating Trafficking in Persons in 1999, 2002, and 2007 (La Strada International, 2012). La Strada International can attribute their success in part because of their ability to work and cooperate across many different sectors. Cooperation amongst NGOs is very valuable because they can exchange information, use referrals, work together on common projects, as well as strengthen their capacity for the services they provide.
Preventative, Educational, and Informational Campaigns: Aside from working to change public policy, La Strada engages in many preventative, educational, and informational activities to promote awareness about trafficking. One of the main goals of La Strada is the prevention of human trafficking through empowerment of at-risk groups. This is done in part by preparing and distributing information to the public about the issue as well as conducting various other activities promoting awareness and possible ways to spot or avoid trafficking. The informational materials that are offered are also an effective way to reach out to actual trafficked people (Tzvetkova, 2002). By making it known that La Strada is a safe place for victims to go, instead of straight to the police, increases their legitimacy and becomes known in the community that they are a valuable resource.
Social Assistance: The La Strada offices also provide social assistance to victims of trafficking and view this as one of the most important services that they provide. La Strada provides psychological, medical, legal, and social support, as well as shelter to victims that come to them. Support services can range from a crisis or emergency intervention, to the implementation of long-term assistance programs. They also try to help find Ukrainian citizens who have disappeared abroad by working with other governments and NGOs in their wide-reaching network.
Hotline: La Strada operates a national hotline where people can call and can be given advice about traveling abroad, marriage, education, violence prevention, and child protection. People who call the hotline can also receive psychological assistance if they are victims of trafficking or violence. Employees of La Strada are constantly being trained on the issues of trafficking and are equipped to provide psychological assistance and advice on traveling abroad for work. The hotline is promoted through media in order to encourage people to use it.
Project Management Framework for Anti-Trafficking Initiatives
Anti-trafficking initiatives can be analyzed in project management context by adopting “Red/Green Zones of Project Implementation,” a project management tool offered by developmentwork.net (http://www.developmentwork.net/). As illustrated in Exhibit 2 below, most anti-trafficking initiatives start as technical assistance (TA) projects in what is labeled as “red zones.” These are project implementation areas where the acceptance of an intervention by counterparts is low and where the complexity of the environment is high. All four anti-trafficking initiatives pursued by La Strada International started in the red zone. In this case, technical assistance intervention can be the setting up a hotline (A), offering social assistance (B), introducing preventative, educational, and informational campaigns (C) or efforts towards policy reform (D). The projected trajectories of four technical assistance interventions are depicted in Exhibit 2.
Exhibit 2: Red/Green Zones of Project Implementation (http://www.developmentwork.net/).
Lessons Learned
What makes La Strada work is their accountability to their greater audience. It is common that smaller NGOs rely heavily on their donors and try to implement projects to fulfill the donor's needs, instead of trying to help the people that they serve. In bigger organizations, there are more stakeholders and funding sources and funding from just a couple of donors does not become an issue. When partnerships are created with other organizations, accountability increases to each other, and organizations are not sidetracked with just the needs of the donors.
Education/hotline materials are available and are posted in public in many different languages to assist people from various different countries. The branch NGOs also provide translation services for any language. This type of collaboration is important because it shows the ability for intercultural communication and does not discriminate against any nationality of victim. The organization makes sustained efforts to get their name out into the public so potential victims can be aware of their services.
Through organizational partners in 13 countries, national coalitions have been formed in support of compensation, and presented recommendations to ensure access to justice for trafficked persons by working law firms. These transnational partnerships with law firms help ensure cooperation and uniformity regarding policy and victim compensation.
La Strada works on increasing knowledge and capacity with other anti-trafficking NGOs, and continues to work with the business sector to help improve consumer awareness about the origins of products and services that result from various forms of slave labor linked to cotton, chocolate, diamonds, etc.
Conclusions
Human trafficking reflects the poor social and legal position of people in many countries. It is a serious human rights violation, which promotes violence, abuse, deceit, and corruption while hindering development efforts. Despite the difficulty to accurately determine the scale of the issue, it is evident that thousands of people are being trafficked every year. La Strada International can attribute their success in part because of their ability to work and have cooperation across many different sectors. Cooperation amongst NGOs is very valuable because they can exchange information, use referrals, work together on common projects and policies, as well as build their capacity for the services they provide. By targeting the core problems that facilitate trafficking, while increasing capacity for victim's services, only then can slavery cease to exist. The first step is to increase awareness; once widespread awareness of the problem is reached, these goals can come to fruition.