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Building on decades of work to prevent violence, this framework is a resource for organizations, communities and governments seeking to strengthen efforts to prevent human trafficking. It reflects research and best practices in violence prevention and health promotion, as well as the expertise of people who have experienced human trafficking and allied professionals.
The Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP) Annual Report highlights fiscal year 2021 accomplishments. The report is structured in two main sections outlining OTIP's efforts to prevent and protect individuals who have experienced human trafficking, including providing access to crucial benefits and services, delivering training and technical assistance to build the capacity of frontline professionals to address human trafficking concerns in their workplace, investing in public awareness and outreach initiatives to increase awareness, and collaborating with diverse partners to strengthen an integrated response to human trafficking, among others. The report notes how OTIP remained flexible, adaptive, and responsive to challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, which exacerbated many underlying social and economic conditions that put individuals at risk for human trafficking. Data is integrated throughout the report to demonstrate how OTIP and grant recipients found creative ways to respond to increased needs.
Participating in peer support groups can lead to positive outcomes for individuals with substance use disorders, but many peer support programs are not trauma-informed and it is unclear whether they are the best fit for individuals who experience human trafficking. The Conducting “Seeking Safety” Peer-Led Program with Individuals Who Experience Human Trafficking and Substance Use Disorder brief (PDF) describes the process of planning and providing training and technical assistance (T/TA) to a survivor-led organization that is piloting a peer-led, evidence-based, and trauma-informed program called Seeking Safety with individuals who are experiencing trafficking and a substance use disorder. The September 2022 update to this previously published brief shares lessons learned from the pilot and offers considerations to inform potential next steps.
These recommendations and checklist were developed by fellows of Class 7 of the Human Trafficking Leadership Academy (HTLA), a fellowship organized by the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center and Coro Northern California. A team of allied professionals and survivor leaders worked together to respond to the following question: “How can federally funded human trafficking service providers address institutional inequities and barriers to accessing services for survivors of human trafficking? How can these networks improve their response to human trafficking for communities of color?”
The fellows make recommendations on minimum expectations for organizations in the anti-human trafficking movement and related fields who receive funding (at either a local, state, or federal level) for the purpose of providing support and services to human trafficking survivors and communities of color. They are intended to build an organization’s capacity to address institutional inequities and barriers to accessing services for survivors of human trafficking and communities/people of color (POC). The HTLA fellowship is funded by the Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP) and the Office on Women’s Health (OWH) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The recommendations and content of this report do not necessarily represent the views of OTIP, OWH, or HHS.
Implicit bias impacts the way we make decisions, interact with others, and behave. Research shows that implicit bias is associated with the provision of lower quality health care, unequal disciplinary action in schools, discriminatory workplace practices, and racial disparity in criminal justice responses. Thus, it is important to be aware of and strive to reduce implicit bias to ensure that our decisions, interactions, and behaviors are fair and nondiscriminatory. The Implicit Bias Trainings Environmental Scan and Brief explores existing healthcare and social service implicit bias trainings, challenges and solutions associated with implementing implicit bias training, and evaluations of trainings.
This scan focuses specifically on understanding existing implicit bias trainings amongst populations impacted by human trafficking (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation) and not solely implicit bias trainings associated with race and ethnicity. It is not the intent of this scan to explore the definition of implicit bias and the relationship between implicit bias, racism, historical context of racism, and structural inequality. See the “Potential Next Steps” section for an overview of opportunities to explore the topic of implicit bias trainings, racism, and structural inequality further given how conflated the terminology is across trainings.
Individuals who experience human trafficking often struggle to find safe and secure housing. Providing individuals who experience trafficking immediate access to emergency, transitional, and long-term housing is critical, because homelessness and housing instability put individuals at risk of being trafficked or experiencing other forms of interpersonal violence. The Housing Programs for Individuals Experiencing Housing Instability or Homelessness Environmental Scan and Brief explore housing programs and practices, barriers to housing, outcomes of adults and youth experiencing housing instability or homelessness who participated in housing programs, and potential solutions to housing barriers.
Individuals who experience human trafficking often experience a lack of long-term employment and a livable wage, wage theft, and illegal deductions from their paycheck. Providing better access to employment is critical, because the lack of stable employment and a livable wage put individuals at risk of being trafficked. The Programs for Increasing Access to Employment Environmental Scan Outline and Brief describe programs, practices, barriers to employment, potential solutions, and outcomes for those who have participated in employment programs.
The objective of this literature review and annotated bibliography is to identify significant research on ACEs and social determinants of health found in at-risk populations, including children in and aging out of foster care, runaway and homeless youth, unaccompanied children (UC), Indigenous youth, and rural and urban youth. The goal of this literature review is to inform trafficking prevention efforts by leveraging knowledge gained from existing research. After the conclusion of the literature review, an annotated bibliography is provided with a synopsis of 33 relevant articles published between 2000 to 2017 from various disciplines, including psychology, youth studies, public health, and health care.
The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of offender reentry; explore the intersection between human trafficking and prisons; explore how programs and services for offender reentry can support survivor reentry; discuss ways reentry programs can support self-sufficiency; and discuss recommendations for leveraging best practices from offender reentry programs to assist the reintegration of survivors of trafficking.
Participating in peer support groups can lead to positive outcomes for individuals with substance use disorders, but many peer support programs are not trauma-informed and it is unclear whether they are the best fit for individuals who experience human trafficking. This brief describes the process of planning and providing training and technical assistance (T/TA) to a survivor-led organization that is piloting a peer-led, evidence-based, and trauma-informed program called Seeking Safety with individuals who are experiencing trafficking and a substance use disorder.
