As a part of our partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, GFEMS is pleased to share the launch of our new project with Willow International. Coupled with other efforts in the portfolio, the Fund’s objective in this project is to build resiliency against exploitative recruitment among vulnerable populations in Uganda. This includes not only pre-labor migration support, training, and resources, but also rehabilitation and reintegration services for survivors, reducing their risk of re-trafficking. 

Ethical recruitment is a key focus of the Fund’s efforts. Working within our intervention framework, we target reduction in supply of vulnerable individuals, demand for cheap goods and services, and the enabling environment that allows modern slavery to persist and traffickers to operate with impunity. This project specifically targets reduction of the supply of vulnerable individuals.

The project will expand a range of pre-migration and survivor services, including holistic survivor care services, legal support, and educational, vocational, and economic training and opportunities for survivors and at-risk individuals. These services aim to empower workers with the skills and resources they need to recognize risky employment situations and create sustainable livelihoods within their communities and families. 

Willow’s trauma-informed survivor care program is a multi-faceted rehabilitation program helping survivors heal from trauma, be free from re-victimization, reconcile with family, and eventually reintegrate into the community. Willow will work with survivors to provide the tools and support necessary to learn a vocation, start a business, or pursue education to re-enter society as fully engaged

productive members. The survivor-led approach reintegrates survivors and at-risk individuals into the economic fabric of Uganda by providing a choice of alternative livelihood pathways, including connection to jobs in growth sectors. 

Rehabilitation and reintegration for survivors is critical to sustainable success of anti-slavery interventions. It can have a ripple effect throughout the community – ending interlocking cycles of abuse, poverty, and exploitation. 

GFEMS incorporates rigorous research and evaluation agendas into all of its programs. In our partnership with Willow in Uganda, we will: 

1. Measure the effectiveness of aftercare services in meeting the needs of survivors,
2. Evaluate the impact of training and education on survivor participation in the economy and how the provided services decrease victims’ vulnerabilities to re-trafficking, 
3. Assess how Willow International’s Community-Based Care Program differs from traditional shelter-based models and how this affects the reintegration process for forced labor victims.

GFEMS looks forward to providing updates on this project and sharing our learnings with the anti-trafficking community. For updates on this project and others like it, subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. 

This article and the Willow International project were funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of State. The opinions, findings and conclusions stated herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of State.

Want to get involved in a project like this?

As a part of our partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, GFEMS is excited to share the launch of our new project and partnership with HAART. Coupled with other efforts in this portfolio, the project objectives are to support vulnerable youth and survivors of overseas forced labor, and to reduce vulnerability to exploitation for survivors and prospective migrants from Kenya. 

HAARTwas formed in 2010 with a vision to see a world free from trafficking in persons. Since its inception, HAART has reached more than 60,000 people through its outreach activities and assisted more than 600 victims of human trafficking from across the region.

Ethical Recruitment is a key focus of the Fund’s efforts. Working within our intervention framework, we target reduction in supply of vulnerable individuals, demand for cheap goods and services, and the enabling environment that allows modern slavery to persist and traffickers to operate with impunity. This project specifically targets the supply of vulnerable individuals and the enabling environment. 

On the supply side, GFEMS and HAART will focus on providing rehabilitation and reintegration services to victims. The project will both identify victims and provide them with trauma-informed and victim-centered rehabilitation services, including access to medical aid, shelter, and other basic services. To assist survivors and youth in securing long-term ethical employment, HAART will cooperate with the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) to facilitate the Technical Vocational and Education Training (TVET) program.

By increasing the number of survivors successfully rehabilitated and reintegrated in their communities and by empowering vulnerable youth by driving their employability in the private sector, the project specifically targets sustainable reduction in vulnerability to trafficking.  

Addressing the enabling environment, the project will engage with source communities to identify and report trafficking and exploitation. HAART will conduct a community sensitization campaign on human trafficking to increase awareness about HAART’s helpline, basic identification of victims, and where to get help in the community.

GFEMS incorporates rigorous learning and evaluation agendas into each project. In this project, GFEMS will assess the unique psychosocial and livelihood support needs of survivors and vulnerable populations. GFEMS will document the extent to which the project activities have been tailored to appropriately address identified needs and support the economic empowerment of both groups. We will also conduct intervention effectiveness evaluations to ensure that the individualized case management plans respond to the survivors’ needs. 

GFEMS looks forward to providing updates on this project and sharing our learnings with the anti-trafficking community. For updates on this project and others like it, subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. 

This article and the HAART project were funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of State. The opinions, findings and conclusions stated herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of State.

Want to work with us on projects like this one?

As a part of our partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, GFEMS is excited to share the launch of our new project and partnership with Hope for Justice. Coupled with other efforts in the portfolio, the project objectives are to: 

• Provide rehabilitation services to survivors of sex trafficking in Uganda
• Improve and standardize rehabilitation and trauma-informed care practices within the region
• Build capacity for service delivery for the national network, Uganda Coalition Against Trafficking in Persons (UCATIP). 

See more of our work combatting sex trafficking.

Sex trafficking is a key focus of the Fund’s efforts. Working within our intervention framework, we target reduction in the supply of vulnerable individuals, demand for sexual exploitation, and the enabling environment that allows modern slavery to persist and traffickers to operate with impunity. This project specifically targets the supply of vulnerable individuals and the enabling environment. 

On the supply side, GFEMS and Hope for Justice will provide holistic rehabilitation services to survivors, including shelter, psychosocial support, and medical care at its reintegration centers, Lighthouses in Kampala. Hope for Justice will also trace survivors’ families and, when safe, will work with the family to provide reintegration support. Working with local partner, Platform for Labor Action (PLA), the project will facilitate access to vocational training, apprenticeships, and sustainable employment opportunities for survivors over age 16 to reduce their risk of re-trafficking. In addition, with the support of PLA, the project will facilitate access to legal support for survivors of child trafficking. To improve access to care and services long-term, GFEMS and Hope for Justice will support the members of CAPITU to strengthen coordination and improve the standard and consistency of care for survivors in the region. 

To address the enabling environment and reduce risk of re-traumatization for survivors, the project will focus on improving trauma-informed care within the justice system. Police, magistrates, and prosecutors will be trained on trauma-informed care and practices. This reduced risk level should also make their testimony more effective for the prosecution of traffickers and provide a critical step in deterring traffickers. 

Further, the project partners will work with the University of Nottingham’s Rights Lab to develop a suite of evidence-based, trauma-informed Standards of Care resources. Hope for Justice will implement these resources as a part of its services at Lighthouses. Throughout the project, GFEMS will monitor the uptake of the resources and their impact on quality of survivor care. 

GFEMS looks forward to providing updates on this project and sharing our learnings with the anti-trafficking community. For updates on this project and others like it, subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. 

This article and the Hope for Justice project were funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of State. The opinions, findings and conclusions stated herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of State.

Interested in working with us on survivor empowerment?

The Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS) is excited to share the launch of a new portfolio of investments in Kenya and Uganda. These new projects represent the growth of the Fund into East Africa and a significant expansion to our growing portfolio since our first investments in Asia in late 2018.

With support from the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, GFEMS is pleased to be funding nine new projects and working with seven new partners in East Africa. The portfolio totals nearly $10M USD.

“This is a significant moment for GFEMS as we grow and make progress towards our vision of ending modern slavery. These innovative investments will be a powerful step forward and reflect our unwavering commitment to ensuring local leadership and solutions that are sustainable and tailored to the needs of the populations we serve. We are excited to launch these projects with our fantastic partners and the support of the U.S. State Department, ” said Alex Thier, GFEMS CEO.

These innovative investments will be a powerful step forward and reflect our unwavering commitment to ensuring local leadership and solutions that are sustainable and tailored to the needs of the populations we serve.

— Alex Thier, CEO

These investments focus on two of the Fund’s key sectors– enhancing ethical recruitment and combating sex trafficking.  These efforts are intended to reduce the vulnerability of people to trafficking, forced labor, and exploitation and to support survivors; reduce the market pressure for sex trafficking and impossibly cheap labor; and improve the enabling environment to ensure good laws and regulations are properly enforced, and impunity for traffickers is ended. Learn more about Our Approach.

PARTNERS AND PROJECTS: 

• International Organization for Migration (Kenyaand Uganda):Ethical recruitment is a key to disrupting forced labor and debt bondage. Our project with IOM will work with recruitment agencies to foster ethical practices while supporting government actors to create accountability with new recruitment oversight mechanisms.
• International Associate of Women Judges (Kenya and Uganda): Labor trafficking among migrant workers is a complex, cross-border phenomenon. Information gaps and lack of coordination among law enforcement and judicial stakeholders hamper effective identification and prosecution of traffickers and prevalence reduction efforts. GFEMS and IAWJ will work together to bridge these information gaps and strengthen judicial and law enforcement response to trafficking cases. 
• Terre des Hommes (Kenya and Uganda): Comprehensive efforts to combat sex trafficking need to include long term survivor support and community engagement. Terres des Hommes and GFEMS are focusing on skilling and livelihood training  for survivors for long-term employment and building a proactive and supportive community through community-based prevention 
• Hope for Justice (Uganda): Putting the needs and wellbeing of survivors first is a critical part of addressing sex trafficking. This project aims to not only provide rehabilitation services to survivors, but to improve the standards of care within the region to prioritize survivor-informed practices. 
• International Justice Mission (Kenya): Improving coordination among different actors in the justice system– prosecutors, law enforcement, social workers– is essential not only to deterring trafficking, but for increasing survivor confidence in the justice system. Together with IJM, GFEMS is working to build community and survivor confidence in the criminal justice system, increase capacity of local law enforcement to investigate and prosecute sex trafficking, and to develop new victim-centered standard operating procedures for victim case management.
• Willow International (Uganda): To build resiliency against unethical recruitment and risk of trafficking, migrant workers need end-to-end support. Willow and GFEMS are working to build community resilience against exploitative recruitment for vulnerable populations in Uganda by providing pre-labor migration support, training, and resources, and rehabilitation and reintegration services for survivors.
• Awareness Against Human Trafficking (HAART) (Kenya): Reducing vulnerability to trafficking includes safely rehabilitating and reintegrating survivors into their community. GFEMS and HAART are working to support survivors in their reintegration journey, and empower vulnerable populations by driving their employability in safe jobs. 

Across these projects and the Fund’s wider portfolio, GFEMS designs programs and strategies for future investments with systemic change and sustainability in mind. Our funding focuses on projects with high potential for replication and scale, and identifies opportunities to leverage national priorities and market demands. All projects are informed by, and tailored to, the populations that GFEMS seeks to serve. Through our partnership with the U.S. Department of State, GFEMS is working to establish sustainable change in at-risk communities, criminal justice reform, and survivor care through increased government, private sector, and community engagement.  

GFEMS will continue to share information about our portfolio, partners, and impact.

Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for updates on the latest developments, news, and opportunities with GFEMS. 

This article was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of State. The opinions, findings and conclusions stated herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of State.

Detecting child and forced labor in today’s global, complex supply chains is a daunting challenge. The complexity, fragmentation and fluidity of most company’s supply chains limit visibility to the raw materials used in their products. Risks of exploitative labor practices, including child and forced labor, increase at the raw material level, such as farming and mining, and are typically excluded from traditional corporate responsible sourcing programs.

The U.S. Department of Labor awarded ELEVATE a $4 million cooperative agreement to enhance tracing of goods made with child, forced labor and other exploitive practices as part of a four-year project. Through this award, ELEVATE is establishing a consortium that includes the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS), Diginex Solutions, RCS Global Group, and the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI). The consortium partners will shape the development and publication of a supply chain and industry agnostic commodity traceability protocol and tracing platform to equip business and other stakeholders with tools to trace their supply chains. This enhanced level of supply chain visibility will support the business sector’s human rights due diligence efforts to source materials that are untainted by child and forced labor, as well as other labor exploitative practices.

The consortium will pilot the tools in two strategic sectors and geographies: cotton in Pakistan and cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These pilot cases were selected because of their geographic and supply chain differences and to test the transferability of existing conflict minerals traceability best practices to agricultural commodities. The methodologies and tools developed during the project will be applicable for a wide range of consumer goods industries, including information technology, apparel, and automotive.

Globally, cobalt and cotton are two of the most in-demand commodities for producing consumer goods, such as batteries and clothing. Evidence of child and forced labor in the sourcing of these commodities is well-documented, yet there is no existing solution that allows brands in multiple industries to detect the use of forced labor in their commodity supply chains. This leaves brands vulnerable to the risk of unidentified child and forced labor in their upstream supply chains.

“Businesses are facing increased pressure to trace their supply chains to the raw material level. However, efforts to date aren’t scalable, limiting corporate efforts to address increased forced and child labor risks existing at the root of their supply chains. Through this award, we intend to create a protocol and platform to make end-to-end supply chain traceability a standard element of any company’s responsible sourcing program and human rights due diligence efforts. Companies can’t address what they cannot see, which is why we want to make the unseen visible,” says Ian Spaulding, Chief Executive Officer of ELEVATE.

The protocol and platform will equip brands and retailers with actionable tools to expand their supply chain visibility to identify and address labor exploitation associated with the materials essential to making the products they sell.

All inquiries regarding this announcement may be addressed to media@gfems.org.

Funding is provided by the United States Department of Labor under cooperative agreement number IL-35808-20-75-K. One hundred percent of the total costs of the project or program is financed with USG federal funds, for a total of $4 million dollars.

About ELEVATE

ELEVATE is the leading business risk and sustainability solutions provider. We deliver improved organizational performance through sustainability and supply chain assessment and auditing, consulting, program management and analytics. We shape the industry with our innovative solutions to complex problems, by designing and implementing customized programs and technology that provide complete insight into risk and improve supply chain and sustainability performance. ELEVATE is headquartered in Hong Kong, and the company’s 650 employees oversee work in over 100 countries through dedicated offices in Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Germany, Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Pakistan, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, UK, USA and Vietnam.

About GFEMS

The Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS) is a bold international fund catalyzing a coherent global strategy to end human trafficking by making it economically unprofitable. With leadership from government and the private sector around the world, the Fund is escalating resources, designing public-private partnerships, funding new tools and methods for sustainable solutions, and evaluating effectiveness to better equip our partners to scale and replicate solutions in new geographies.

About Diginex Solutions

Diginex builds purpose-led technology with a focus on responsible business practices.  With workers at the core of our solutions to increase transparency, trust and accountability in global supply chains, we work to ensure that technology sits where it can have the greatest impact.  Our team of labor rights specialists and software engineers takes a human-centric approach to develop each solution.  With a track record of successfully deploying scalable technology across Asia and South Asia, our objective is to promote fair recruitment, safe migration, and decent work.

About RMI

The Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI) is an initiative of the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA). The RMI is a multi-industry initiative with more than 400 member companies. Its members contribute to the development and international uptake of a range of tools and resources focused on minerals supply chain due diligence, including independent third-party audit programs for smelters, Minerals Reporting Templates, supply chain risk assessment tools, Country of Origin data, and guidance documents on responsible sourcing of tin, tantalum, tungsten, gold, cobalt, and mica. The RMI runs regular workshops on responsible sourcing issues and contributes to policy development with civil society organizations and governments. For more information, visit ResponsibleMineralsInitiative.org

About RCS Global Group

RCS Global Group is a global leader in the assessment and assurance of responsible sourcing of natural resources and the associated production, trade and transformation processes. With teams working from offices around the world, RCS Global Group also creates positive impact by providing companies with the strategy advice and tools to act responsibly and sustainably. This includes enabling companies to measure, demonstrate and report on their own – and their suppliers’ – positive impact and continuous improvement over time. For further information, please visit: www.rcsglobal.com.

Interested in working with us on supply chain solutions?

The Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS), in collaboration with the International Labour Organization, is supporting the Legislative Reform of Labor Migration project in Vietnam. The National Assembly adopted the revised Law on Contract-Based Overseas Workers on November 13, 2020, which will improve protection for Vietnamese migrant workers and reduce vulnerability to human trafficking when it goes into effect on January 1, 2022. Now that the law has been adopted, GFEMS and the ILO are pleased to support the development of subordinate legislation to operationalize the reforms. Read the full press release from ILO:

ILO commits to supporting Viet Nam to enforce new law on Vietnamese migrant workers

HANOI (ILO News) – On International Migrants Day (18 December), the ILO welcomes the chance to improve the protection of Vietnamese migrant workers brought by the newly-revised Law on Contract-Based Vietnamese Overseas Workers. The Law, passedby the National Assembly on 13 November 2020, which will come into effect on 1 January 2022, builds upon previous Vietnamese legislation to strengthen protections for migrant workers. 

In particular, the new Law has removed brokerage commissions payable by migrant workers to recruitment agencies, and prohibited charging service charges to migrant workers who use public, non-profit entities to migrate abroad. Migrant workers who pay high recruitment fees and related costs are more vulnerable to labour exploitation. including forced labor/human trafficking.

“By reducing allowable costs chargeable to migrant workers, the Law offers greater protection from these harms,” said ILO’s Regional Labour Migration Specialist, Nilim Baruah. “When workers are indebted by high migration costs, they may be less able to leave employment when they are abused, exploited or forced to work. Removing brokerage commission from the costs permitted to be paid by migrant workers goes part way to addressing this risk.” 

For recruitment agencies, the new Law retains certain categories of costs chargeable to migrant workers, namely the service charge and deposits, but sets limits and will detail the amounts allowable in subordinate legislation to be developed over 2021. The Law states that service charges in subordinate legislation should not exceed the ceiling of three months’ salary, which recruitment agencies can take from workers and receiving partners. Setting this      ceiling for these costs will enable migrant workers to make informed decisions about migration, and for awareness to be raised about the costs of regular migration. 

The Law prohibits discrimination and forced labour within labour migration and permits workers who are subjected to, or threatened with, maltreatment, sexual harassment or forced labour to unilaterally terminate their employment contracts without financial penalty. Under the new Law, recruitment agencies may have their licence revoked if they use deceitful advertising or other deceptive means to recruit workers for the purpose of forced labour/     trafficking in persons or other forms of exploitation. 

Additionally, as part of pre-departure orientation training, recruitment agencies are required to provide      knowledge and skills in the prevention of forced labour/trafficking in persons, and gender-based violence    

“The Vietnamese Government’s commitment to prevention of forced labour in labour migration is evident in the passing of this revised Law,” said Baruah. “The Law takes the critical first step towards reducing recruitment fees and related costs charged to migrant workers.”

The ILO’s Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997 (No. 181) and ILO’s General principles and operational guidelines for fair recruitment state that “workers shall not be charged directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, any fees or related costs for their recruitment” and that “prospective employers, public or private, or their intermediaries, and not the workers, should bear the cost of recruitment.”      

“The ILO is committed to supporting the process of development of subordinate legislation through social dialogue, and implementation of the Law throughout 2021 and into the future,” said ILO Viet Nam Director, Chang-Hee Lee. 

This year’s International Migrants Day celebrates the 30th anniversary of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. The passage of the Law on Contract-Based Vietnamese Overseas Workers is an important step towards labour migration being an empowering and enriching experience for all Vietnamese migrant workers.

Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for updates on the latest developments, news, and opportunities with GFEMS. 

GFEMS is working with Social Accountability International (SAI), with funding from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) to disrupt the prevalence of modern slavery in the ready-made garment (RMG) sector in India. As part of the Fund’s Apparel and Manufacturing portfolio, SAI will develop a digital platform to incentivize and support improvements in labor compliance by preferentially linking ethical suppliers with buyers. Ultimately, SAI’s platform will reduce unauthorized subcontracting, a key driver of forced labor.

There are an estimated 12 million workers employed in India’s RMG sector, though that number is likely to be higher due to the uncounted home workers and employees of illegal or unauthorized subcontracting facilities. Factories in India’s RMG sector are known to drive multiple indicators of modern slavery, including mandatory overtime work, unsafe working conditions, and unauthorized subcontracting. These conditions are brought on, in part, by poor understanding of the connection between strong labor practices and the opportunity for factories to be reliable and efficient suppliers.

While these problems are well known, there are few opportunities for buyers to gain full transparency into their supply chains and for suppliers to improve their production planning. Both factors would incentivize and enable better social compliance.

SAI’s project will fill these gaps by developing a digital platform to combine suppliers and buyers and a suite of tools to help both parties improve their labor practices. Aligning with the Fund’s intervention framework, this project addresses the demand for cheap goods and services and aims to transform the corporate environmental norms that allow slavery to persist in the sector. 

Leveraging SAI’s existing work in Bangladesh, the project will develop tools and training to improve buyers’ purchasing practices and suppliers’ capacity and production planning. Helping buyers manage their purchasing orders and suppliers plan their production schedules will reduce the risk that suppliers will take on the unrealistic targets that result in unauthorized subcontracting. Unauthorized factories sit outside government regulation and most social audits and therefore present a much higher risk for forced labor violations. SAI’s tool will expand on existing data sets by quantifying the effects of purchasing practices on supplier production capacity—e.g. the effects of  unpredictable volumes, last-minute order changes, design changes, long payment periods, etc. This will help buyers and suppliers to better predict supplier capacity and reduce the likelihood of subcontracting.

The project also represents a deepening commitment to the Fund’s work on supply chain management and risk mitigation efforts. GFEMS has also created an award winning Automated Forced Labor Risk Detection tool, which helps buyers to detect risk of forced labor in their supply chain with 84% accuracy. Additionally, GFEMS is funding ELEVATE to develop a predictive model to help brands identify risk of unauthorized subcontracting in their supply chains and take remediation steps.

GFEMS looks forward to sharing learnings from SAI’s work with stakeholders in India’s RMG sector. Learn more about the FCDO partnership, the Fund’s portfolio, and scoping research.

Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for updates on the latest developments, news, and opportunities with GFEMS.

As a part of its work with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), GFEMS is partnering with Seefar and My Choices Foundation (MCF) in India to empower children, families, and communities to end the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). 

The project is a new investment in the Fund’s sex trafficking portfolio, focusing on addressing the supply side of slavery and reducing risks for most vulnerable individuals, a key pillar in the Fund’s intervention framework. After an extensive period of scoping research and program design, GFEMS identified targeted prevention interventions among children, their families, and local communities at risk of trafficking and CSEC as an opportunity with high potential for impact and replication. 

Coupled with other investments within the FCDO partnership, the Fund’s objective in this project is to understand which targeted prevention intervention is the most effective when working with vulnerable communities in West Bengal. The project is centered around implementing a messaging campaign to inform children of the risk of becoming victims of CSEC and reach potential enablers of CSEC in West Bengal. 

The project strategically matches Seefar’s proven anti-trafficking expertise in complex environments with MCF’s broad grassroots network and pre-existing trafficking prevention model, the Safe Village Program (SVP). The intervention is a behavior-change campaign with community strengthening activities in West Bengal. The campaign tests the comparative impact of different combinations of activities in empowering vulnerable individuals and communities to recognize, prevent, and respond to trafficking and CSEC. These activities will include: word of mouth/ remote counselling, service mapping and referral pathways, digital media outreach and media engagement,  school and community-based outreach, parent outreach, and community outreach to deliver the behavior-change messaging. Messaging provided will focus on the warning signs of CSEC and the realities children may face when moving away from home at an early age for employment or marriage. 

Seefar will test the effectiveness of the prevention strategies to understand which method – or combination of methods – is most effective in changing the knowledge, attitudes, and practices among youth, their families, and their communities with regard to risks to CSEC.

GFEMS looks forward to sharing learnings from the behavior change campaign and insights from Seefar’s research. Learn more about the FCDO partnership, the Fund’s portfolio, and scoping research.

Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for updates on the latest developments, news, and opportunities with GFEMS. 

As a part of its partnership with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), GFEMS is partnering with ELEVATE to develop and pilot SafeStep, a mobile application to provide workers with tools to make informed decisions about migration. The first iteration of the application, which is now live on the Google Play App Store, is designed for Bangladeshi workers considering migrating to work in Gulf Cooperation Council countries. ELEVATE is developing SafeStep in consortium with Diginex Solutions and Winrock International.

The project represents another investment in the Fund’s ethical recruitment portfolio and will focus on increasing the supply of ethically recruited migrants and migrant labor. After an extensive research and scoping period to understand the key drivers of exploitation among Bangladeshi migrant workers, GFEMS identified several opportunities with high potential for impact and replication. The development of SafeStep meets one of those key needs for migrant workers: high-quality support throughout the migration process. By coupling informational and educational content with actionable tools, SafeStep will empower workers to successfully and safely navigate their migration journey, with an emphasis on minimizing worker-paid fees and other avenues for exploitation.

SafeStep’s end-to-end support begins before a worker decides to migrate, with a budget calculator and educational content. These tools help migrants understand the potential cost of relocating for a job and provide accessible information on what to expect during the recruitment process. Support continues after a worker decides to travel, with a blockchain-enabled tool for migrants to upload and store documents like contracts, visas, and receipts for any fees paid. Finally, the app includes a help center where workers can report and receive support on issues or concerns in their migration process.

ELEVATE and its consortium partners centered design of the application on input from stakeholders, including migrants, sub-agents, and employers. Several cycles of user feedback will inform subsequent iterations of the app. Ultimately, SafeStep is designed to serve as a digital backbone for safe migration solutions, with potential to accommodate new features and functionality. SafeStep is initially focused on the migration corridor between Bangladesh and the Gulf, with built-in flexibility to adapt to other key migration corridors.

GFEMS looks forward to the ongoing partnership with ELEVATE, Diginex, and Winrock and to sharing learnings from early usage of this first-of-its-kind platform in Bangladesh. Learn more about the FCDO partnership, the Fund’s portfolio, and scoping research.

Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for updates on the latest developments, news, and opportunities with GFEMS. 

Interested in exploring tech solutions with us?