Terminology

Disclaimer: In the United States’ context, those who have experienced trafficking have differing opinions on labels to identify their experience, and as someone without lived experience of trafficking, it’s not my place to decide or comment on those. In this post, these are the terms I will use and how they are contextualized. It’s also important to note that every person’s experience is different and each person is an expert on their own experience.

• Victim: someone who is currently being trafficked and therefore a victim of the crime of human trafficking.
• Survivor: Someone who is no longer being trafficked.
• Person with lived experience/Individual with Lived Experience (ILE): someone who has experienced trafficking.
• Lived Experience Expert (LEE): a survivor who has become an expert in the field of anti-human trafficking either through research, higher level education, work in the field, or any combination of these, in addition to their lived experience.

Why is Cross-Sector Collaboration Important?

If we want to prevent exploitation, facilitate safe exits, and support survivors through recovery and stability, it’s necessary to be strategic, plan, and work cohesively across sectors. Those working across the public sector, private sector, government, and Lived Experience Experts must work together to share lessons learned and chart the path forward.
Speaking with people with lived experience of human trafficking, common themes emerge. Frontline responders who may have recognized a human trafficking situation, such as health care providers, law enforcement, paramedics, or social workers, fail to recognize or act. Victims are often treated as criminals, rather than victims of a crime, when they interact with law enforcement and the courts. They experience additional trauma and are incarcerated, resulting in a criminal record and inability to access resources. Once someone leaves an exploitative situation, it can be impossible to know where to go and who can help them. They finally find services but can experience re-traumatization from those supposed to help them. Service providers may not listen to survivors to find out what they need and what they’re going through. Providers may have a prescribed plan for every person they work with, refusing to tailor or adapt to fit a survivor’s individual needs. Then, when a survivor tries to gain independence, their criminal record, lack of job history, or bad credit can hold them back.

Many people working in the anti-trafficking field tend to work in silos- thinking their approach is the best and only interacting with other actors when necessary. The result is wasted time, money, resources, and most critically, poorer outcomes for victims and survivors. Nearly every conference, report, and webinar has noted the importance of multi sector collaboration and strategic planning, but there’s less material on what that entails or how to do so successfully.

Cross-Sector Collaboration

To collaborate across sectors is to effectively work together with groups of people whose work intersects with human trafficking: ILE, anti-trafficking agencies, law enforcement, health care providers, service providers, government, and other groups in niche areas, such as labor unions, lawyers, or housing providers. Anyone who has a stake in fighting human trafficking, and those who don’t realize they can impact it, must work together cohesively. Otherwise, providers make mistakes trying to identify best practices that have already been discovered by others. Every person has a piece of the puzzle: knowledge, experience, resources, skills, time, and/or passion, and the more people across sectors talk to each other to identify best practices, learn from failings, and move forward together, the better we can serve survivors and fight trafficking.

People in these various sectors face the same problems: effective prevention, safe exits, meeting the complex needs of survivors, and doing it all with limited resources. For those working towards the same goal, talking to each other can ensure work isn’t being duplicated, identify strengths and gaps, and plan to address gaps. Many have been working in this field for years, decades even, and they have lessons to share on what’s been tried, what’s worked, what hasn’t, and why. Conversely, people new to the field may have fresh perspectives and ideas.

How do you effectively collaborate across sectors? The first step is finding out who is doing the work and bring them to the table. Who are the decision makers within agencies? Who are the historians? Who holds the resources? Most importantly, whenever decisions are made about how to address trafficking, it’s imperative to have people with lived experience at the table.

Here are some more tips:

• Invite people who have a stake, even if you disagree with them or have conflicted with them in the past. Trust may take time, but in the end, survivors will be better served.
• Develop personal relationships with people to build trust and encourage the vulnerability necessary to admit mistakes or share resources. You could meet informally to know them on a personal level and help them with objectives outside of your normal scope.
• Actively listen to and work with those with differing opinions. Focus on common values.
  Ensure meetings have clear agendas, objectives, and action items. Follow up with discussions and plans (like strategic plans).

Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is exactly what it sounds like: planning with strategy. That entails gathering the information necessary to be informed, which may be from data, research, or discovery meetings. Use that information to create clear objectives. Identify what the biggest issues are that face all stakeholders and are most critical for meeting the needs of vulnerable populations, victims, and survivors. Decide on 3-5 overall objectives and make them SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time Bound). Under each objective, identify a few actions to meet the objective. For example:
Identify 100 short-term housing options for clients in your county by the end of the year.

Work with transitional shelters to ensure trauma informed and responsive practices and create referral procedures.
Meet with homeless service providers to identify additional placements and map current resources.
Speak with 5 apartment buildings to secure placements and plan procedures for client safety and property risk management.

Then, define clear action steps to get there. Assign the action steps to those best suited to accomplish them, set appropriate deadlines, and check in to follow up. Even the best laid plans need amending, be open to changing things as you work through.

Strategic Collaboration

Bringing it all together, it’s imperative to meet with people across sectors who are working on this issue to identify best practices, map the work being done, identify gaps, and strategically plan how to meet the needs of vulnerable populations, victims, and survivors. This is easier said than done- differences in opinions, approaches, and past friction can keep people working in silos. True collaboration entails vulnerability, building trust, admitting mistakes, and conscious effort to build relationship with people you may disagree with. But we all have the same goals: to prevent trafficking from happening, help those being exploited safely exit, and connect survivors with resources they need to heal and thrive. The only way we can do that is to work together with care, compassion, and strategy- open hearts and intentional thoughts.

Sara Jayne Breuer is currently a graduate student in International Management at the American University of Paris. She has been involved with human trafficking since 2008 and worked professionally in the field since 2020. Highlights include training 30,000+ frontline professionals and community members, collaborating with law enforcement task forces on training initiatives, leading a city-wide coalition with 60+ members, fundraising, and building personal and professional relationships with people with lived experience of trafficking.