In collaboration with the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), GFEMS is working with Seefar to launch and pilot The Ethical Recruitment Agency (TERA) India. From its headquarters in Lucknow, TERA India will provide safe work opportunities abroad to vulnerable communities in Uttar Pradesh (UP). 

Seefar, a social enterprise with a vision for a world where vulnerable people have more opportunities to advance themselves, will contribute its valuable experience as implementer with comprehensive contextual knowledge of forced labor, modern slavery, and ethical recruitment to the delivery of this project. Seefar launched TERA in 2018 with the mission of helping workers benefit from migration while staying safe from exploitation. 

The Fund’s scoping research indicated that UP and Bihar are two of India’s top migrant sending states to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Community vulnerabilities and an unregulated recruitment system permits exploitation throughout the recruitment process. Vulnerable migrants are charged prohibitively high fees by recruitment agents, leading them to take out loans which may be nearly impossible to pay back and sinking them into a cycle of debt bondage. Beyond financial exploitation, recruiters and their sub-agents often provide false or insufficient information to migrants regarding working and living conditions, salary, and the nature of work to be carried out. 

In this project, TERA India will operationalize systems for monitoring worker welfare, test the viability of an ethical recruitment agency in UP, and provide targeted support to low-skilled workers across multiple industries, including domestic workers, cleaners, and construction workers. In addition, TERA India will engage with the broader community of people vulnerable to modern slavery, including aspiring migrants who are unskilled, poor, and new to the migration process, to enhance understanding of and access to ethical recruitment opportunities. 

This project will provide ethical recruitment service to vulnerable people by supporting debt-free recruitment and adherence to best-practice worker welfare standards. To achieve these goals, Seefar will help migrant workers secure safe employment and work abroad with no recruitment debt, fees, deception, or abusive living and working conditions. Testing TERA’s success will generate learnings on the viability and sustainability of an ethical recruitment agency, with the ultimate goal of shifting the market toward ethical recruitment. A key component of Seefar’s work will be filling the evidence gap to support TERA’s scalability and replication. The project will generate key research products establishing the business case for ethical recruitment, document beneficiary case studies and collect welfare data, and share lessons learned on establishing an ethical recruitment agency. 

GFEMS aims to cultivate increased demand for ethical recruitment services among key stakeholders, including workers. In the longer-term, this demand will reduce prevalence of forced labor among vulnerable communities in UP. GFEMS will share learnings on the demand for ethical recruitment and its impact on the recruitment industry. 

GFEMS looks forward to sharing the successes and lessons learned from the TERA India project and working successfully with Seefar towards our mission of ending modern slavery by making it economically unprofitable. Learn more about the Norad partnership and the GFEMS portfolio.

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Through tireless efforts, the Blas F. Ople Policy Center and the Philippines Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) Task Force on Trafficking of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), under a partnership with GFEMS, and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) of the Philippines, have achieved a landmark prosecution of eight traffickers. A conviction of the traffickers, who were responsible for the forced prostitution of two Filipina women, was handed down in Bahrain in April 2020. 

The victims, two women who had been working in Dubai in 2018, were trafficked when they responded to the perpetrators’ fraudulent offer of better jobs in Bahrain. Upon their arrival in Bahrain, they were confined in a building and forced into commercial sex for several months before escaping.

On April 28, a Bahrain court sentenced each of the convicted trafficking offenders to seven years imprisonment and a fine of 5,000 dinars each, equivalent to USD $5,300.  The convicted include five Filipina women and two Filipino men who recruited the women through fraudulent offers of legitimate work and oversaw their enslavement in an illegal brothel in Bahrain, as well as a Bahraini police officer who was complicit in the trafficking scheme. 

The new IACAT Task Force, of which the DFA is an active member, established in early 2019 as part of the Blas F. Ople Center’s partnership with GFEMS, under a grant from the U.S. government, was instrumental in achieving the successful justice outcome through the use of a case conference approach. The IACAT Task Force secured strong evidence from the two victims which it shared with Bahrain, leading to the successful prosecution in the Gulf State.  The two managed to escape the syndicate to return to the Philippines where they approached the Ople Center for legal assistance. 

Key leaders in the response included the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Under Secretary for Overseas Workers, Ms. Sarah Arriola, who effectively used diplomatic channels in the absence of a formal Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with Bahrain and Ausamah AlAbsi, Chairman of Bahrain’s National Committee to Combat Trafficking in Persons, and a 2018 TIP Report Hero, who led Bahrain’s cooperation. 

GFEMS is proud to be a partner of the Blas F. Ople Center, led by OFW protection champion Susan Ople, and the member agencies of the IACAT Task Force on Trafficking of OFWs.

This article was funded in part by a grant from the United States Department of State. The opinions, findings and conclusions stated herein are those of the author[s] and do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Department of State.

This month the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS) is co-hosting a Cross-Industry Data View webinar in partnership with The Knoble and SAS Institute. The webinar will cover the work to-date of the Liechtenstein Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking (FAST) Initiative and explore specific opportunities to accelerate progress. This will be followed by an in-person workshop later this year where participants will build a roadmap for creating a cross-industry data view of financial transactions.

These expert convenings are part of the Fund’s ongoing commitment to mobilizing the financial sector against trafficking and slavery, following the launch of the Liechtenstein Initiative’s Blueprint for Mobilizing Finance Against Trafficking and Slavery at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2019. In alignment with the Fund’s approach, the workshop will foster collaboration across sectors by bringing together representatives from financial institutions, government, anti-trafficking organizations, and the FAST Initiative.

Financial institutions have different views of transactional and account activity, resulting in only partial or fragmented understandings of potentially illicit financial flows. There is an opportunity to create a more holistic picture of account activity through improved collaboration and communication between financial institutions. It may be possible to develop a cross-industry data view by utilizing pre-existing infrastructures and capabilities within the financial sector. Ultimately, this could accelerate efforts to identify and disrupt illicit financial flows to traffickers.

In the upcoming workshop, GFEMS and its partners will work side by side to identify actionable steps for creating this data view to enable institutions to proactively share relevant information. Participants will focus on identifying opportunities to improve information sharing across institutions, clarify what information needs to be shared, and pinpoint outstanding challenges to be addressed. Following the workshop, participants will develop a project roadmap that includes clear steps and milestones to creating a cross-industry data view.

GFEMS thanks The Knoble and SAS Institute for their partnership and looks forward to continued collaboration with the financial sector as part of its overarching strategy to end modern slavery by making it economically unprofitable.

Read more from GFEMS on mobilizing the financial sector to end modern slavery and human trafficking.

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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 assessing impact to better equip our partners to scale and replicate solutions in new geographies.

A major theme in the recommendations from the 2019 U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking’s Report is the need for additional resources dedicated to assistance in gaining and maintaining employment for underserved populations like survivors of human trafficking. While lack of specialized employment support is not a new problem and similar recommendations have been made in the past, few resources exist for survivors to gain the necessary skills or training to succeed in obtaining meaningful and decent work.

This International Women’s Day, GFEMS is pleased to announce the pilot launch of the “Future in Training (FIT) Hospitality” Survivor Employability Curriculum, in partnership with Marriott International.

Developed by GFEMS and Marriott over the past two years, the first-ever FIT curriculum focuses on hospitality. It is the Fund’s first program in the United States and is aimed specifically at providing training and resources for survivors seeking careers in the hospitality sector. Marriott’s partnership with GFEMS is part of the company’s human rights goals, which include training 100% of on-property hotel workers in human trafficking awareness. To date, the company has trained over 700,000 hotel workers,

The FIT Hospitality pilot will be implemented with the support of the University of Maryland Safe Center (UMD Safe Center) in the Washington, DC metro area. Through this program, GFEMS will provide survivors with an introduction to hospitality and tools for employability in the sector using a multi-disciplinary curriculum encouraging dynamic engagement. The first-phase of the pilot will test implementation and knowledge gained to inform further enhancements and the need for post-curriculum follow-up services, such as application assistance or career mentoring. Pilot participants will also benefit from transportation and child care support that mitigate known barriers to survivor career training.

GFEMS anticipates several learning outcomes following the FIT Hospitality pilot. GFEMS will support identification and monitoring of the barriers survivors face in trying to gain training and aim to understand the adequate level of support survivors need while participating. Ultimately, GFEMS seeks to gain a better understanding of the type of assistance survivors need to gain meaningful employment and implement that knowledge into the FIT curriculum and other programming; the Fund aims to create customized assistance that meets the needs of survivors.

The pilot will provide valuable insights for GFEMS as it continues to build its portfolio within one of its key pillars, Sustaining Freedom for survivors. As GFEMS continues to grow and build new programs globally, livelihood training programs in various industries and sectors that both equip survivors with necessary skills and prevent at-risk populations from entering risky situations remain a priority. Insights from the FIT Hospitality pilot, along with other planned research, will inform new FIT programming in additional sectors for sustained freedom in the US and abroad.

Following the pilot’s implementation, GFEMS looks forward to sharing the insights gained and plans for future implementation. The Fund is grateful for the partnership and support of Marriott and UMD Safe Center, and is excited to continue our commitment to empowering survivors.

Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter for the latest information on our activity.

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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 assessing impact to better equip our partners to scale and replicate solutions in new geographies.

A decade after the inaugural National Human Trafficking Prevention Month in the United States, first enacted by President Obama in 2010, the fight against trafficking continues with the goal of ending modern slavery and human trafficking for good. 

The landscape of this fight has transformed significantly and in positive ways. Among some of the successes in the US context are the establishment of the survivor-led United States Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, increased funding for anti-trafficking through the creation of the Program to End Modern Slavery (PEMS), and an emerging cohesion around building the evidence base on what works to end trafficking in persons.  

Centering the voices of survivors through the U.S. Advisory Council is an especially significant development. At the Fund, one of our top organizational values is to Learn Continuously, striving to seek out the “knowledge and perspectives of others, especially those of whom we seek to serve and empower.” Survivors are consulted in the design of our programs and regular feedback mechanisms will soon be implemented to ensure our funding assists the intended communities. GFEMS views this as a critical element in the achievement of our mission. Expanded efforts by the US Government, such as the Advisory Council, ensure programming is survivor-informed and will help efforts across advocacy and awareness, prevention, and rescue and reintegration to result in more effective, safe, and relevant interventions.

In its most recent report, the Advisory Council recommended four areas of necessary action: 

• Increasing awareness of survivor- and trauma-informed practices among U.S. government staff.
• Building and supporting networks of survivors to provide training, technical assistance, and capacity building to U.S. government agencies and their grantees.
• Increaing public awareness of all forms of human trafficking, including labor trafficking.
• Expanding grantmaking efforts that address all forms of human trafficking and offer services and protection for all victims/survivors no matter their age, gender, creed, race, or sexual orientation.

While GFEMS does not currently implement programs in the US, we have integrated these recommendations– along with suggestions from other survivor-led alliances– into our operations. Our programs, including some funded by the PEMS program, are equipping institutional stakeholders to provide survivor- and trauma-informed care. Our partners must demonstrate how survivor input informs their project and share how survivor-leaders will be empowered through their activities. The Fund’s programs go beyond raising awareness to targeted behavior-change communications. Similarly, the Fund’s portfolio of grants span a diverse group of subrecipients to ensure varied demographics and types of trafficking are addressed.

The PEMS program, of which GFEMS was the first award recipient, represents a significant effort by the U.S. Government to expand grantmaking efforts that address all forms of trafficking. Under its PEMS award, the Fund launched programs across Rule of Law, Business Engagement, and Sustained Freedom for survivors. These programs are a new opportunity to build transformative programs and dig deep into the drivers of modern slavery in multiple sectors and geographies, discovering what really works to end modern slavery sustainably. These resources have allowed GFEMS to develop and test solutions with partners– as well as invest in evidence and learning– to address different parts of the systems perpetuating modern slavery. 

While there is still a lot to achieve, the progress the anti-TIP community has made over the past decade are steps in the right direction. Organizations are finally, and rightfully, amplifying survivor voices. Stakeholders, including GFEMS, are working collaboratively together to fill the evidence gaps in the field. This shift in emphasis to gathering actionable, rigorous, and accurate data will lead to improved interventions for GFEMS, as well as the field at large, and improve evidence-informed policy at the government level. 

Over the next decade, GFEMS looks forward to building on the momentum of progress made thus far, investing in transformative programs to reduce the prevalence of slavery, and working in partnership with others to make slavery economically unprofitable. 

In August 2019, Pinkcollar, Malaysia’s first ethical recruitment agency for domestic workers, opened its doors in Kuala Lumpur. Founded by Zenna Law and Elaine Sim, Pinkcollar aims to disrupt the domestic worker industry and make ethical recruitment the new standard practice in Malaysia. The first of its kind in Malaysia, Pinkcollar follows a growing number of Asia-based firms promoting ethical recruitment.

The Hong Kong-based Fair Employment Foundation (FEF), one of the Fund’s partners on the ground, played a central role in Pinkcollar’s establishment. FEF’s mission is to build market-based solutions to end forced labour of migrant workers in Asia. The first of these market-based solutions was Fair Employment Agency (FEA), a non-profit ethical employment agency that ensures workers are never charged recruitment fees. FEA was set up in 2014 and had its first break-even year in 2018. It is now one of the biggest employment agencies in Hong Kong.

Using models from their own operations and the GFEMS project, FEF helped Pinkcollar to create their ethical recruitment model. FEA’s standards and operations serve as a strong foundation for Pinkcollar’s service processes and as a benchmark that guides Pinkcollar’s progress.

Read the full story to learn more about Pinkcollar and how GFEMS partner with FEF to expand ethical recruitment models across Asia.