People, Policy, Prevention & $

The anti-trafficking effort is often categorized by rescues of typically women and children from conditions of modern day slavery. It’s incredibly compelling and emotional to imagine helping each person individually who is enslaved, but it is also crucial to look at wider, historic efforts to make sure that we learn from the past. It took a diverse, organized and sustained effort to end the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The focus of the abolitionist movement wasn’t simply to remove one person at a time, but also to target the economic and political systems that allowed the injustice of slavery to continue. At LIFT, we seek freedom through justice for all victims of human trafficking and exploitation. In order to make that possible, we believe it will take sustained and strategic efforts with a variety of outcomes. That’s why we pursue cases of not only removing people from harm, but also cases that we believe will have a system-wide, at times global impact on People, Policy, Prevention and Money.

What do those cases look like?

People —  These cases remove men, women and children from situations of human trafficking. Our identify team partners with law enforcement to ensure that people, especially children, are protected from further exploitation.

Policy — We always hope a case will lead to people in power making better informed decisions. Policy change is crucial to governments strengthening laws protecting people and creating appropriate penalties for offenders.

Prevention — We believe in prevention through identifying perpetrators of trafficking and prosecuting them. Our identify team helps to find traffickers and exploiters while our legal team assists in prosecuting them. This prevents them from harming other people and also creates a deterrent effect for potential offenders.

Money — Some LIFT cases or efforts are about taking money away from traffickers and their organizations, either through government’s Anti-Money Laundering Organization seizures or through victim compensation claims that order money to be paid to victims from their offenders.

These are the ways LIFT can have the most impact for our size and our budget. Some cases, of course, will lead to more than one outcome. And some cases don’t always go our way. But by focusing on our team’s expert backgrounds, we are as effective as we can be. We also partner with law enforcement agencies and other NGOs to make our work stronger and better. There are countless other organizations playing their part, seeking the outcomes that make the most sense for them, as well. We are grateful that there are so many engaged in combating human trafficking, because it takes a network to combat a network.

Throughout the month, we will be highlighting cases that explain more of these outcomes and how our work is having an effect on changing the conditions that make human trafficking possible.