GFEMS is proud to share the launch of a new portfolio of interventions and innovations with our partner, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO). The portfolio is expected to total approximately 9M USD. 

The FCDO portfolio represents deepening investments in India and Bangladesh, following the inaugural GFEMS portfolio launch in late 2018, and two additional launches with Norad and the US State Dept. Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons earlier this year. 

Originally scheduled to launch in spring 2020, all of the projects in this portfolio have been adapted to reflect and respond to new needs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Working with our partners on the ground, these projects are now better designed to mitigate exacerbated vulnerability, adjust to remote environments, and contribute to responsible recovery. 

“The FCDO portfolio reflects thoughtful, nuanced, and deliberate action to disrupt modern slavery.”

— Helen Taylor, Director of Programs

Prior to project launch, GFEMS engaged in extensive scoping and design phases to identify the geographies and sectors with the highest potential for impact. The portfolio, designed based on the findings from that efforts, addresses the following opportunities: 

• Overseas Labor Recruitment in Bangladesh 
• Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE) in India
• Forced Labor in the Apparel Sectors in India and Bangladesh. 

GFEMS is funding a total of seven projects across these opportunities:

• IJM– Strengthening Systems to Protect CSEC Victims and Sustain Freedom in Maharashtra
• Seefar– Empowering Children, Families and Communities to End Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
• BRAC– Reducing Forced labor in Informal Ready-made garment factories in Bangladesh with Sustainable Livelihood Opportunities
• SAI– Improving Buyer-Supplier Engagement, Purchasing Practices, and Capacity/Production Planning India’s Informal Ready-Made Garment Supply Chains
• ELEVATE– Safestep: A Responsible Recruitment Platform for Safe Migration in Bangladesh
• ELEVATE- Laborlink: Disrupting the Prevalence of Forced/Bonded Labor in Bangladesh Informal Ready-Made Garments
• ELEVATE- Developing Predictive Analytics Tools to Disrupt Forced and Bonded Labor in India’s Informal Ready-Made Garments 

Projects within the portfolio address the key pillars of the Fund’s intervention framework– supply, demand, and enabling environment of modern slavery. They address core challenges that prevent sustainable reduction in prevalence. 

Sustainability is a key theme across the projects, and across the Fund’s wider investment portfolio. GFEMS designs programs and strategies for future investments with sustainability in mind. Funding focuses on both projects with high potential for replication and scale,  and those that leverage both national priorities and market demands. All projects are informed by, and tailored to, the populations GFEMS seeks to serve. Within the FCDO partnership, GFEMS specifically targets sustainable changes in supply chain practices, project sustainability through increased government and private sector engagement, and sustainable livelihoods for survivors. 

“The FCDO portfolio reflects thoughtful, nuanced, and deliberate action to disrupt modern slavery. The Fund worked closely with partners to develop holistic programming that is based on the best available evidence, but also flexible enough to respond to evolving needs in the field. We are excited to launch these programs with our incredible partners and grateful for the support of FCDO,” said GFEMS Director of Grant Programs, Helen Taylor.

GFEMS will share more information about the portfolio, projects, and our implementing partners in the following weeks. We look forward to sharing the impact, successes, and lessons learned from this portfolio. 

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

Interested in working with us?

The Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS) is pleased to share the expansion of our Global Finance portfolio to include an initiative focused on use of new payment technologies and virtual currencies by traffickers.

This initiative will evaluate new payment technologies and virtual currencies tied to online sexual exploitation of children (OSEC), determine how to identify these transactions, and develop forensic techniques for investigating the illicit financial flows to traffickers. Building on the Fund’s recent work with partners in the Philippines and the UK to identify and disrupt financial flows tied to online sexual exploitation of children (OSEC), these initiatives are designed to drive development of solutions with potential to be replicated globally. 

Mobilizing the financial sector is a critical component in the Fund’s comprehensive strategy. The financial sector has tremendous potential to drive systemic change and play a key role in making modern slavery economically unprofitable.

Beginning in 2018, when GFEMS CEO Dr. Jean Baderschneider served as a commissioner on the Liechtenstein Financial Sector Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking and building off the efforts of the ensuing FAST Initiative, GFEMS has accelerated its investment in financial sector innovation and partnerships. To-date, GFEMS has committed over 1 million USD in funding to its Global Finance initiatives. 

This Global Finance portfolio is strategically designed to leverage and integrate diverse funding streams, driving innovation and more effectively mobilizing the financial sector. 

One component of the Fund’s financial sector strategy is leveraging the power of responsible investors to drive meaningful, sustainable actions by companies to address forced labor risks in supply chains. For companies to take meaningful action, they first need actionable insights on forced labor risks in their supply chains. However, existing forced labor risk assessment tools have largely been too qualitative or inexact to inform targeted and effective risk mitigation efforts. 

To address this, GFEMS has developed an award winning forced labor screening tool that predicts the risk of forced labor at the firm level using operational features like the number of known trade partners, financial information, and geography. The Fund intends to release the prototype open source for investors, supply chain management platforms, and NGO watchdogs to further develop and integrate into their own platforms, elevating the issue of forced labor in due diligence and procurement. This effort is key to ultimately mobilizing trillions in private sector procurement and ESG investment to sustainably address forced labor.

The Fund also leverages the expertise and analytics capabilities of the financial sector to improve efforts to identify and disrupt illicit financial flows to traffickers. As part of this workstream, GFEMS kicked off the Cross Industry Data Initiative (CIDI) in early 2020. Working with The Knoble and SAS, the Initiative convenes financial crime professionals, financial institutions, law enforcement experts, and NGOs in a series of working groups to address data-sharing challenges and build partnerships necessary to implement solutions.

We look forward to sharing future updates about our growing Global Finance portfolio and partnerships. Together we can create and implement actionable solutions for ending modern slavery.

To stay updated on this project, and projects like it, subscribe to the GFEMS newsletter and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. 

Have an idea for innovative finance?

Ethical recruitment channels remain out of reach for most Overseas Filipinx Workers (OFWs), despite sincere efforts by the Philippine Government to protect them. This puts them at risk of trafficking and if exploitation does occur, unethical channels do not provide any access to grievance mechanisms for remedy.

While the Philippines is in many ways a leader among labor-sending countries with regards to ethical recruitment practices, traffickers exploit remaining gaps. For example, while OFWs migrating for domestic work cannot legally be charged fees (a key source of debt bondage among migrant workers), vulnerable workers in other low-skill sectors, can be charged. Furthermore, enforcement of regulations is not fully effective. A recently released study by Seefar found that on average, Filipina domestic workers paid $700 in recruitment fees despite it being illegal for agencies to charge such fees. 

The recruitment industry also has much room for improvement in implementing practices that can reduce the risk of trafficking. There are 1,300 licensed recruitment agencies in the Philippines and countless more informal operators. Almost none of these agencies are in line with international ethical recruitment standards. 

With funding from the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, GFEMS is addressing these challenges by assembling a consortium of partners led by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), that also includes the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, Diginex, and the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance (the “Alliance”). The consortium will improve recruitment industry practices by supporting and incentivizing the effective, sustainable adoption of ethical recruitment in the Philippines, with particular emphasis on domestic workers and hospitality workers. 

Multiple complementary workstreams will bring together the Government of the Philippines, Philippine recruitment agencies (PRAs), the hospitality industry, and civil society organizations (CSOs) dedicated to migrant worker protection. Together, the consortium will provide these stakeholders with: 

• Tailored capacity building activities
• On- and off-line toolkits
• An updated grievance reporting and referral platform, especially focused on the Philippines – Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) corridor
• A data-driven action plan for implementing ethical recruitment models across the Philippines
• An ethical recruitment due diligence toolkit for the hospitality industry. 

Ultimately, the project aims to sustainably reduce the prevalence of TIP among OFWs by empowering the Government of the Philippines and civil society to create an environment for more employers and PRAs to practice ethical recruitment and provide safer employment alternatives overseas. The planned tools are intended to help the recruitment industry reduce demand for exploitative labor by providing data-driven approaches to drive behavior change and creating greater access to ethical recruitment capacity building programs. 

Finally, as part of the Fund’s commitment to expanding the field’s evidence base, we will be researching learning questions related to effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, and sustainability, including:

• How compliant are PRAs with ethical recruitment standards prior to the intervention? 
• What are the key reforms needed to create an enabling ecosystem for the implementation and enforcement of ethical recruitment standards?
• What is the role of the private sector in creating demand for ethical recruitment practices and/or further support needed in mainstreaming good practices developed through the project?
• How can collaboration across the recruitment value chain be increased to promote ethical recruitment?
• To what extent is a grievance mechanism platform effective in giving migrant workers a voice to raise their concerns and providing key stakeholders with an opportunity to take remedial action?

GFEMS looks forward to sharing more information about this project as it is implemented, and is grateful for the support of the U.S. Department of State and the partnership of the consortium. 

To stay updated on this project, and projects like it, subscribe to the GFEMS newsletter and follow us on Twitter. 

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

GFEMS is excited to share that we have won in the “Prosperity” category at the 2020 Society for International Development- Washington Chapter Innovation Competition. Our entry, “Automated Decision Support Tool for Forced Labor Risk Detection” was judged by two separate panels of career nonprofit and international development professionals.

In developing the tool, GFEMS set out to solve the challenge companies, investors, authorities, or other stakeholders face in identifying the location(s) of forced labor in large, complex supply chains. With no existing viable tools developed that are both sustainable and effective, identifying forced labor in global supply chains has been nearly impossible. While numerous supply-chain risk assessment tools exist, the Fund undertook this project because existing tools suffer from one or more of the following shortcomings:

• They rely on qualitative information that is self-reported, expensive to collect and/or difficult to compare — all of which limits accuracy and scalability;
• Assessments are mainly restricted to tier-1 suppliers, so the vast majority of suppliers are excluded;
• They mostly provide high-level assessments of risk at a country level, which is insufficiently precise to enable meaningful action.

The GFEMS team, led by Senior Data Scientists Shannon Stewart, developed a novel decision support tool that predicts the risk of forced labor at the company level with about 84% accuracy. It uses data that is collected passively by governments and operates without participation of any of the firms on whom data is collected.

The tool is intended as a first-pass screening tool for use by corporate social responsibility and procurement professionals, investors, regulatory enforcers, and other stakeholders like NGO watchdog groups. It is not intended to replace these functions, rather it prioritizes due diligence efforts and stretches the impact of every dollar invested in cleaning up supply chains. It can elevate responsible manufacturing businesses in both access to markets and capital, and, in turn, support sustainable livelihoods for their workforces. Ultimately, the goal is to benefit the estimated 16 million people who are victims of forced labor within private-sector supply chains and to prevent more vulnerable people from becoming victims.

The Fund is currently gathering feedback on the tool from industry experts, and intends to release a refined version as an open source project. GFEMS has successfully demonstrated that there is reliable, detectable signal of forced labor risk in operational data. This proof of concept has encouraged at least one supply chain risk platform to begin development on a tool that operates on public data, combined with data that may be available only to them. 

Moving forward, the Fund will work directly with companies who wish to implement a similar process. By opening our thinking to the public, GFEMS aims to inspire companies to take a new look at their data and how it fits with the broader context of industrial operations and to develop analogous tools that work for them.

To stay updated on this project, and projects like it, subscribe to the GFEMS newsletter and follow us on Twitter.

Despite sincere efforts by the Philippine Government to protect Overseas Filipinx Workers (OFWs), human trafficking is especially prevalent in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). Weaker institutions, inadequately equipped personnel, and lack of community awareness pose significant challenges to effective anti-trafficking in persons (TIP) efforts. Low awareness of the risks connected to labor migration – along with the common conflation of human trafficking, smuggling, other forms of irregular migration, or other crimes – causes victims not to self-identify as such, and vulnerable communities not to recognize the warning signs. 

With funding from the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, GFEMS is working to address the challenges in BARMM by partnering with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to build awareness of trafficking among the at-risk communities of BARMM and build capacity for pre-departure training service providers. IOM has a large team on the ground in BARMM, impressive expertise in local dynamics, and a previous history of successful awareness campaigns in the region.

To build awareness among vulnerable communities, IOM will work directly with the most at-risk populations to develop key messages that will be delivered through community-led awareness raising campaigns. These campaigns will primarily focus on behavioral change communications using the latest in evidence-driven communications techniques. These campaigns will target prospective migrants with little understanding of the risk of migration in order to equip them with the knowledge to increase their resilience.

GFEMS and IOM will also work to build the capacity of service providers, enabling them to train prospective labor migrants on labor migration risks, and ensure those migrants have knowledge of and access to quality support and resources, and are more resilient in the face of TIP risks and drivers. The capacity building process includes facilitating regular in-region meetings among government stakeholders to provide them with more data collection, analysis, and reporting opportunities, which will ultimately result in more evidence-based decision making and more effective anti-TIP government initiatives. In parallel, IOM will work with service providers to develop context-specific orientation materials for departing migrants, further optimizing pre-departure training.

Over the course of the project, GFEMS and IOM will conduct extensive learning and evaluation activities to determine the effectiveness of the interventions. Questions explored in the project will include: 

• Does providing context-sensitized, pre-departure orientation material improve reach among vulnerable OFWs?
• Do targeted, context-sensitive community engagement and awareness initiatives increase awareness of TIP risks and drivers among at-risk communities?
• Is it possible to create early warning systems at the community level that allow us to identify individuals, families, and social segments who are most at-risk of TIP?
• To what extent is BARMM able to influence unsafe migration dynamics that transcend its borders? 

GFEMS looks forward to sharing more information about this project as it is implemented, and is grateful for the support of the U.S. Department of State and the partnership of IOM. 

To stay updated on this project, and projects like it, subscribe to the GFEMS newsletter and follow us on Twitter. 

—— 

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

The complex inter-agency coordination that must take place to ensure effective prosecutions and survivor services have been a significant barrier to delivery of justice for human trafficking cases. Khrizzy Avila, GFEMS Country Coordinator for the Philippines, states that “Labor trafficking cases involving Overseas Filipinx Workers (OFWs) are often complex and require quick and appropriate actions from multiple government agencies. These types of cases are often left unacted upon or suffer from major delays in agency responses. As a result, trafficked OFWs are often denied access to justice and grievance mechanisms and they lose interest in pursuing cases against their traffickers.”

With the launch of the Integrated Case Management System (ICMS), important strides are being made to address this longstanding issue. The ICMS is a digital case management system that tracks trafficking cases involving OFWs, ensures a harmonized and victim-centered response, and improves inter-agency coordination. As Avila stated, “The ICMS is the first of its kind to provide Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) member agencies with the tools to fully integrate their actions and services for trafficked OFWs.”

With support from GFEMS, the Blas F. Ople Policy Center and Training Institute, Inc. is making significant headway on implementing the ICMS with government agencies in the Philippines. Key government agencies are now partnering with the Ople Center to clear the backlog of cases and move towards using the system as a contemporaneous case management system. It will be used by government agencies to pursue cases against human traffickers, while ensuring proper legal, repatriation, and reintegration assistance is delivered to OFW victims. Specifically, the ICMS facilitates survivors’ access to services such as counseling, temporary shelter, education, and livelihood programs. Avila says, “The system tracks the services delivered to OFWs after government caseworkers and social workers assess their needs. Service providers are able to recommend specific types of services, and endorse their access to available facilities.”

The ICMS exemplifies the Fund’s vision of combating modern slavery by leveraging the power of technology. The Ople Center and GFEMS hope to increase the reach of the ICMS by raising awareness, resources, and expanding its use to region-specific task forces. Soon, online trainings and refresher courses will be added. The ICMS developers will continue to make changes based on feedback from participants. Eventually, the program will be available not only for OFW cases, but for all survivors of human trafficking.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the ICMS has proved even more crucial because government officials and other stakeholders are working remotely and the number of cases is increasing exponentially. Avila explains, “The ICMS is a great step forward in providing better care and services to OFW-victims of trafficking in persons. The ICMS launch this year has been particularly relevant due to current limitations brought on by community quarantine and the lockdown of government offices. There is a more compelling need to respond to cases and deliver services online than ever before.”

The ICMS aims to create a coherent, comprehensive mechanism of action that will combat slavery at its core and end impunity for traffickers. Avila concludes, “The ICMS will empower the OFWs or their next of kin in managing their own cases and charting their own paths for healing and reintegration. They will have knowledge about the status of their cases, which agencies are doing what, and the reasons for any delays. The ICMS will enable the trafficked OFWs to become more active participants in their pursuit for justice.” Through multi-stakeholder partnerships and more responsive complaint and reintegration mechanisms, GFEMS and the Ople Center are fighting back against exploitation and ensuring that all exploited people have access to justice.

To stay updated on this project, and projects like it, subscribe to the GFEMS newsletter and follow us on Twitter.

——

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

Maharashtra has been one of the states hit hardest by COVID-19 in India. The pandemic has exacerbated many vulnerabilities, particularly for those experiencing poverty, including vulnerability to trafficking. As the pandemic continues, traffickers are adapting their methods, including the use of online methods, particularly in regards to the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). 

GFEMS is working to end impunity for traffickers and strengthen justice delivery for survivors. 

With funding from the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, and working with Save The Children India (STCI), the Fund is addressing the enabling environment that allows trafficking to persist. 

Working with a local NGO, GFEMS aims to ensure that the trafficking cases brought to trial are more efficiently resolved by interpreting the law in the spirit in which it was enacted, improving evidence examination, and ensuring the coordination of justice system actors. 

GFEMS projects focus on sustainable solutions with impactful long-term outcomes. The STCI project is no exception. Long term success will be achieved by supporting a justice delivery system that is strengthened, sensitized, and coordinated, resulting in effective prosecution of traffickers. The project will also ensure that survivors have faith in the system, based on improved support and responsiveness of the courts and legal representatives. Specifically, STCI will build capacity and extend mentorship to government stakeholders and legal actors – prosecutors, judges, District Legal Services Authority legal aid lawyers, and paralegal volunteers – and extend legal counseling and assistance in court and police stations to survivors of CSEC. The training and mentorship are designed to increase sensitivity among judges toward victims, helping ensure that victims participate as an integral part of the justice delivery system.

In addition to a planned evaluation of intervention effectiveness, GFEMS plans to conduct learning activities to answer questions such as: 

• What are critical aspects of the law that are left to judges’ interpretation that could be used in victims’ favor?
• How do victims perceive justice and the justice delivery process? 
• Does the addition of a victim-centric lens in prosecutor training result in greater or more sustained victim participation in the prosecution process?
• If we train and give ongoing support to one specific arm of the anti-trafficking ecosystem (i.e., the justice system), does it contribute to reduced prevalence in the target geography? 

GFEMS looks forward to sharing more information about this project as it is implemented, and is grateful for the support of the U.S. Department of State and the partnership of STCI.

––

To stay updated on this project, and projects like it, subscribe to the GFEMS newsletter and follow us on Twitter. 

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

Maharashtra has been one of the states hit hardest by COVID-19 in India. The pandemic has exacerbated many vulnerabilities, particularly for those experiencing poverty, including vulnerability to trafficking. As the pandemic continues, traffickers are adapting their methods, including the use of online methods, particularly in regards to the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). 

GFEMS is working to end impunity for traffickers and strengthen justice delivery for survivors. 

With funding from the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, and working with Save The Children India (STCI), the Fund is addressing the enabling environment that allows trafficking to persist. 

Working with a local NGO, GFEMS aims to ensure that the trafficking cases brought to trial are more efficiently resolved by interpreting the law in the spirit in which it was enacted, improving evidence examination, and ensuring the coordination of justice system actors. 

GFEMS projects focus on sustainable solutions with impactful long-term outcomes. The STCI project is no exception. Long term success will be achieved by supporting a justice delivery system that is strengthened, sensitized, and coordinated, resulting in effective prosecution of traffickers. The project will also ensure that survivors have faith in the system, based on improved support and responsiveness of the courts and legal representatives. Specifically, STCI will build capacity and extend mentorship to government stakeholders and legal actors – prosecutors, judges, District Legal Services Authority legal aid lawyers, and paralegal volunteers – and extend legal counseling and assistance in court and police stations to survivors of CSEC. The training and mentorship are designed to increase sensitivity among judges toward victims, helping ensure that victims participate as an integral part of the justice delivery system.

In addition to a planned evaluation of intervention effectiveness, GFEMS plans to conduct learning activities to answer questions such as: 

• What are critical aspects of the law that are left to judges’ interpretation that could be used in victims’ favor?
• How do victims perceive justice and the justice delivery process? 
• Does the addition of a victim-centric lens in prosecutor training result in greater or more sustained victim participation in the prosecution process?
• If we train and give ongoing support to one specific arm of the anti-trafficking ecosystem (i.e., the justice system), does it contribute to reduced prevalence in the target geography? 

GFEMS looks forward to sharing more information about this project as it is implemented, and is grateful for the support of the U.S. Department of State and the partnership of STCI.

––

To stay updated on this project, and projects like it, subscribe to the GFEMS newsletter and follow us on Twitter. 

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