Fighting human trafficking

But there are other, overlooked areas where survivors can contribute. Notably, they could cooperate with law enforcement to help dismantle trafficking networks. After all, survivors know firsthand how people are recruited, coerced, manipulated, and exploited. They understand not only the physical and psychological tactics that traffickers use, but also how victims respond to these tactics.

A Ugandan survivor of nearly two years of sexual exploitation in the Middle East once described how traffickers would deliberately interact with the police in front of their captives, creating the impression that the police could not be trusted to protect victims, thereby discouraging reporting. Such insights could be integral to effective counter-trafficking operations and interventions.

To leverage the knowledge and capabilities of survivors in the fight against human trafficking, law-enforcement officers would need to train survivors in areas ranging from the law to investigative techniques. Such efforts would not only enable survivors to help dismantle human-trafficking networks, but would also give them transferable job skills.

At the same time, law-enforcement officers would have to learn from survivors, working with them to gain valuable insights into the functioning of trafficking networks. In fact, survivors should be supported in conducting – as paid facilitators or trainers – training programs for law enforcement.

Programs that deepen the relationship between survivors and law enforcement would go a long way toward dispelling the narrative of fear perpetuated by traffickers, who are understandably eager to keep the two groups apart. The mutual trust this engendered could strengthen survivors’ cooperation in investigations and prosecution of traffickers, further contributing to an increase in conviction rates.

To reinforce this connection further, law enforcement officials should become involved in survivor rehabilitation programs. This would also foster improved relations between law enforcement and NGOs and could even lead to shared responsibility for rehabilitation, which currently is often left to the NGO sector.

Of course, the specific programs in which a government invests should fit that particular country’s needs, identified on the basis of improved data. Even more important, survivors must be protected during this process, to avoid re-traumatisation. This means making sure that they give their consent, and have been rehabilitated, before being put on the frontline of the fight against human trafficking.

Willing and rehabilitated survivors, however, should be empowered to pursue meaningful engagement with law enforcement. They have insights and intelligence that could prove to be game changers in counter-trafficking operations. And nobody is more passionate about dismantling human-trafficking networks than those who have been victimised by them.

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Agnes Igoye is the founder of Dream Revival Center for survivors and heads the Uganda Immigration Training Academy. She is a 2018 Aspen New Voices Fellow.

 Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2019.