USAID Cuts Detrimental to Combatting Human Trafficking Around the World
Blog post by:Laura A. Dean, Associate Professor of Political Science, Director of the Human Trafficking Research Lab at Millikin University
Anti-trafficking efforts worldwide are in peril due to the Trump administration’s proposed elimination of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The removal of the agency will send anti-trafficking efforts around the world into a tailspin and likely shutter critical services for victims and survivors of this crime in many source countries for human trafficking.
Even if this is only a 90-day pause to review the United States’ foreign aid spending or worse a complete destruction of the agency, this executive order will have lasting and profound impacts on anti-trafficking work.
It will mean cuts or the entire elimination of shelters, prevention programs, hotlines, trainings, and social services that non-governmental organizations (NGO) in source countries provide.
The lack of services will create a ripple effect making people more vulnerable to human trafficking and more likely to take fraudulent job offers because they are desperate to earn money, increasing human trafficking around the world today.
Human Trafficking has been a policy priority of the United States (US) government since the bi-partisan adoption of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) in 2000.
This law built the foundation for trafficking efforts in the US including the establishment of human trafficking task forces, creation of awareness campaigns, formation of the T-visa, provisions for sentencing guidelines, and strengthened services for victims/survivors.
While most US based human trafficking advocates are familiar with the law’s focus on the American efforts, the TVPA also established parameters for different initiatives around the world. The law required USAID to:
Establish and carry out programs and initiatives in foreign countries to assist in the safe integration, reintegration, or resettlement of victims of trafficking and their children and to take appropriate steps to enhance cooperative efforts among foreign countries, including countries of origin of victims, to assist in such integration, reintegration, or resettlement.1
It also amended the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to authorize the President of the United States to provide assistance to foreign countries on programs and activities focused on the elimination of trafficking.2 As a result, this law elevated Countering Trafficking in Persons (C-TIP) efforts as a foreign policy goal of the United States government. Since then, USAID has invested nearly $400 million across 88 countries to prevent trafficking and protect survivors.3
The impact of this aid has helped stem trafficking in many source countries.
A few of USAID’s accomplishments include:
- The establishment of programs to stem forced begging of children in Senegal.
- Work to facilitate a National Strategy and Action Plan to combat trafficking and irregular migration in Egypt.
- Funds for a campaign to build awareness on trafficking and safe migration among populations vulnerable to trafficking in Bangladesh.4
Consequently, the C-TIP programs sponsored by USAID have made a significant mark on the global anti-trafficking movement by helping to elevate and prioritize this crime, 25 years of efforts which could potentially be undone with the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign assistance and mass layoffs of USAID contractors and grantees.
This directly affects anti-trafficking work in Ukraine, a country where I have spent a significant amount of time researching human trafficking.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in 2022, Ukraine has received more foreign aid than any other country. These USAID funding cuts will have a huge impact on that country during war.5
Though there were initial reports that USAID programs in Ukraine would be exempt from the spending freeze, it is now apparent that only heat and electricity programs for Ukrainian refugees are exempt from the cuts.6 All other programing would halt.
This funding freeze is especially detrimental to preventative human trafficking work with vulnerable displaced persons. A population of people which has increased significantly since the Russian invasion.
I have witnessed the impact of C-TIP work in Ukraine first-hand, even before I set foot in Ukraine for my year of fieldwork investigating human trafficking policy and adoption in 2012-2013. I met a USAID C-TIP representative at a conference when I was a graduate student, and she offered to help when I arrived in Ukraine. This meeting led to a snowball effect which fostered contacts around Ukraine. Going to a new country as a graduate student with no contacts, this USAID colleague made the research process easier for me and has remained an advisor on my research ever since-even through two stages of war in Ukraine.
Highlights of USAID’s work in Ukraine include:
- Funded capacity building initiatives between the government and NGOs that fostered the first National Referral Mechanism, a policy aimed at “improving the identification, referral, and assistance” to human trafficking victims across Ukraine.7
- Developed small business grants to help trafficking survivors start their own businesses.
- Support for the operation of the National Toll-Free Counter-Trafficking and Migrant Advice Hotline pictured below.
This hotline assisted over 10,000 callers before the invasion and in the first two years following Russia’s the invasion8 the hotline fielded 93,604 phone calls.9
This toll-free hotline offers information about human trafficking and safe travel, assistance to people looking to migrate with consular information and local organization information in the destination country, and also works to identify human trafficking survivors/victims. This is the only hotline in Ukraine to be continually operational during the entirety of the war.
Imagine if this vital hotline went silent during because of USAID spending freezes!
USAID was visible in every anti-trafficking organization I have visited in Ukraine over my three different research trips (in 2012-2013, 2015, and 2024). From the now occupied Donetsk and Sevastopol to Lviv, Kharkiv, and Uzhhorod, I found USAID sponsored flyers and materials everywhere I went around Ukraine.
When I traveled to Ukraine in 2024, USAID was again present with posters of the human trafficking hotline number at bus stations, train stations, and border crossings. I often reflect on the privilege I had traveling around Ukraine — a major reason I was able to connect with a network there was due to USAID’s long standing programs opening many of these doors for me. As the first American who had ever visited many of these local organizations, I was even asked to pose for photos as a thank you to the United States government that made these programs possible.
In times of problematic US foreign policy, I have always been proud to see how my tax dollars have been spent on human trafficking prevention and rehabilitation efforts in Ukraine.
USAID C-TIP programs are vital to human trafficking work around the globe.
The 90-day freeze on foreign assistance is already impacting anti-trafficking work in Southeast Asia where NGOs helping people leave forced labor compounds that fuel digital fraud like investment scams have reportedly had to cut services helping survivors escape the criminal groups that run these scams on Americans.10 Not only do these proposed cuts fuel trafficking but they also fuel Russian propaganda which kicked USAID out of Russia in 2012 and has cheered for the proposed closure of this agency.11
When the United States government’s policies align with bloody dictatorships who commit war crimes, we need to re-think our decisions.
In conclusion, the proposed USAID cuts will lead to fewer outlets for victims to leave their trafficking situation, fewer services for survivors once they leave, and fewer job opportunities for survivors which could force them back into exploitation. This could also lead to an increase in trafficking in the US because the NGOs working on education and prevention efforts in source countries have closed or are working at a diminished capacity.
This article was also published on Slave Free Today.
1United States Congress, “H.R.3244 – Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000” https://www.congress.gov/bill/106th-congress/house-bill/3244 (Accessed February 9, 2025).
2United States Congress, “H.R.3244 – Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000” https://www.congress.gov/bill/106th-congress/house-bill/3244 (Accessed February 9, 2025).
3United States Agency for International Development, “World Day Against Trafficking in Persons” https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-releases/jul-30-2024-world-day-against-trafficking-persons#:~:text=Those%20who%20survive%20are%20saddled,prevent%20trafficking%20and%20protect%20survivors. (Accessed January 31, 2025). This page was taken down on February 1, 2025 with the entirety of the USAID website.
4United States Agency for International Development, “Counter Trafficking in Persons” https://2012-2017.usaid.gov/trafficking#:~:text=USAID’s%20C%2DTIP%20approach%20follows,building%20for%20a%20strengthened%20response (Accessed February 9, 2025).
5Deychakiwsky, Orest. “Wrong and absurd: The assault on U.S. foreign assistance” Ukrainian Weekly. https://subscription.ukrweekly.com/2025/02/wrong-and-absurd-the-assault-on-u-s-foreign-assistance/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIcevBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXm8xISWD5VAVQpze-UoQ3cEdPTypepNRsDzdsoJhm9i9jpMiYPGf9jOoA_aem_fCt-yfT_s6gjMtlxSHPq0Q (Accessed February 16, 2025).
6Murphy, Brett and Anna Maria Barry-Jester. 2025. ‘People Will Die’: The Trump Administration Said It Lifted Its Ban on Lifesaving Humanitarian Aid. That’s Not True. https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-state-department-usaid-humanitarian-aid-freeze-ukraine-gaza-sudan (Accessed February 10, 2025).
7United States Agency for International Development, “Counter Trafficking in Persons” https://2012-2017.usaid.gov/trafficking#:~:text=USAID’s%20C%2DTIP%20approach%20follows,building%20for%20a%20strengthened%20response (Accessed February 9, 2025).
8United States Agency for International Development, “Counter Trafficking in Persons” https://2012-2017.usaid.gov/trafficking#:~:text=USAID’s%20C%2DTIP%20approach%20follows,building%20for%20a%20strengthened%20response (Accessed February 9, 2025).
9International Organization for Migration, “Ukraine and Neighboring Countries 2022-2024 Two years of Response”
https://www.iom.int/sites/g/files/tmzbdl486/files/documents/2024-02/iom_ukraine_neighbouring_countries_2022-2024_2_years_of_response.pdf (Accessed February 11, 2025).
10Burgess, Matt and Lily Hay Newman, “The Collapse of USAID Is Already Fueling Human Trafficking and Slavery at Scammer Compounds” https://www.wired.com/story/usaid-collapse-is-helping-criminal-scammers-enslave-people/ (Accessed February 11, 2025).
11Meduza, “Moscow welcomes Trump’s campaign against USAID. ‘Russian propaganda turned out to be true,’ says U.N. rep.” https://meduza.io/en/news/2025/02/10/moscow-welcomes-trump-s-campaign-against-usaid-russian-propaganda-turned-out-to-be-true-says-u-n-rep (Accessed February 12, 2025).
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Articles for more information
Dean, Laura A. “How many Ukrainian refugees have been trafficked? We won’t know for years” Monkey Cage, Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/22/how-many-ukrainian-refugees-have-been-trafficked-we-wont-know-years/ July 22, 2022.
Dean, Laura A. Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia. (United Kingdom: Policy Press, University of Bristol, 2020). https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/diffusing-human-trafficking-policy-in-eurasia.
Dean, Laura A. “Human Trafficking Dynamics and Prevention Efforts as an Outcome of Russia’s War on Ukraine.” Nationalities Papers, (2024): 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2024.49. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/nationalities-papers/article/human-trafficking-dynamics-and-prevention-efforts-as-an-outcome-of-russias-war-on-ukraine/78F85163D2B5F17B184B6A4FA3264744.
International Organization for Migration, “Human trafficking in times of conflict: the case of Ukraine” https://eca.iom.int/news/human-trafficking-times-conflict-case-ukraine
United States Department of State, “Trafficking in Persons Report Ukraine” 2024 https://www.state.gov/reports/2024-trafficking-in-persons-report/ukraine/