US funding helps rescue children from trafficking: Those efforts must persist

Today, the State Department is expected to publicly release the 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report), the U.S. government’s annual analysis of state-led efforts to identify victims of human trafficking, prosecute offenders who exploit vulnerable people and support survivors of the horrendous crime of modern-day slavery around the world.

Perennial challenges like poverty, conflict and government inaction fuel slavery, but recent trends — Russia’s war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic and its after-effects and irregular migration due to climate change — have only exacerbated the vulnerability to trafficking for millions around the globe. The U.S. government’s standardized, annual production of the TIP Report is part of what makes it so valuable. It gives policymakers, advocates and the public the ability to see how individual governments are progressing (or failing to progress) in their efforts to address particular challenges with trafficking and exploitation in their country’s context.

This year’s report comes on the heels of newly released global estimates of slavery from the Global Slavery Index (GSI), which finds more than 50 million people were victims of modern slavery in 2021. These findings mirror the increase of 10 million trafficking victims discovered through a collaborative report produced by International Labor Organization, the International Organization for Migration and Walk Free (which also produces the GSI).

It can be quite easy, even for anti-trafficking advocates, to despair in the face of the data and narrative that tells us human trafficking is only worsening in our world. But below the surface of the global estimates, in countries like the Dominican Republic, we are seeing progress in the form of strengthened public institutions that address and prevent trafficking in collaboration with civil society and community-based partners.

Nearly a decade ago, a 2014 study showed sex trafficking of children in the Dominican Republic was a rampant crime, with children comprising 1 in 10 people who were observed in sexual exploitation — most as young as 13 to 15 years old. Traffickers operated with impunity in establishments like bars, brothels and even private businesses, but the crime truly thrived in public settings. The prevalence of minors in sex trafficking in public spaces like parks, beaches, and streets surrounding private establishments was as high as 24 percent of individuals observed in sexual exploitation. Customers would work through buscones — young men or women who work as trafficking facilitators and offer to find children for sex.

This had been the norm for years — studies carried out during the early 2000s consistently reported women and children as the most vulnerable to trafficking and sexual exploitation, particularly highlighting the number of children trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation.

As the scale of violence and impunity became clear, the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP Office) funded an anti-trafficking program in the Dominican Republic led by International Justice Mission (IJM), where I work as director of U.S. congressional affairs. This strategic investment in U.S. foreign assistance of $725,000 leveraged IJM’s years of experience assisting local law enforcement and justice sector authorities in the fight against sex trafficking and helped transition the focus of the work to sustainable protection in the long term, to ultimately strengthen local authorities’ capacity to proactively identify this crime and enforce laws. 

According to the State Department, this programming sought to create “a measurable deterrence and a significant reduction in the prevalence of sex trafficking in the country” through “consistent apprehension and effective prosecution of perpetrators,” and provide “an effective response to sex trafficking that ensures the sensitive treatment of survivors and results in a deterrent effect that reduces the prevalence of the crime throughout the country.”

From 2019-2023, these U.S.-funded efforts helped authorities in the Dominican Republic with proactive identification, investigation and prosecution of sex trafficking cases. IJM also helped the Dominican Republic National Police to co-design the anti-human trafficking department’s first electronic investigation system, spurred on a civil society movement to successfully advocate for the ban of child marriage and empowered survivors to establish “Cicatrices de Oro” (Scars of Gold), a survivor-led advocacy group working to create safer communities in which other children will never experience the violence they did. 

Today, the transformation within the system is evident, measurable and felt by community members.

Nearly 10 years since the baseline measurement, a 2022 endline study estimating the prevalence of Dominican minors trafficked for sex showed that children represented only 2.2 percent of people observed in commercial sexual exploitation — an incredible 86 percent reduction in prevalence. The reduction of prevalence was even more dramatic in public spaces where it reduced decreased from 24 percent to just 3.4 percent. Additionally, preliminary data from a performance study shows a sevenfold increase in arrests of traffickers in the past four years, a true testament that the public justice system’s performance to address trafficking has undeniably improved. The system is holding perpetrators accountable and reducing impunity.

The impact of anti-trafficking programs, like the TIP Office-funded program that catalyzed protection in the Dominican Republic, cannot be realized without sustained resources and deepened political will by governments, including the United States. Despite today’s expected 2023 TIP Report release, Congress has still yet to reauthorize vital international anti-trafficking policy and funding enshrined in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), which lapsed in Sept. 2021. 

It is past time for the reauthorization of the TVPA to advance through both chambers of Congress and reach the president’s desk. The work of the TIP Office, through its annual report and targeted foreign assistance, is too important to let this legislative work fall by the wayside. Before Washington empties for August, that status quo should change.

Nate King serves as director of U.S. congressional affairs for International Justice Mission (IJM). IJM is a global non-governmental organization (NGO) that protects people in poverty from violence.