Skip to main content

Who Funds Re/integration? Ensuring sustainable services for trafficking victims

2014, Anti-Trafficking Review, Who Funds Reintegration Ensuring sustainable services for trafficking victims
Type
Article (issue/policy brief, journal, blog, etc.)
Country
Albania, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Kosovo/UNSC 1244
Region
South Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Organization
Anti-Trafficking Review
Year
2014
Authors
R. Surtees

This article discusses the critical importance of re/integration services in the lives of trafficked persons and as central to an effective anti-trafficking response. It outlines how support and resources for re/integration services have so far not been widely available and the impact of this on trafficked persons. The article also discusses different strategies used within one re/integration initiative—the Trafficking Victims Re/integration Programme (TVRP)—to promote sustainable re/integration services given the limited (and now declining) funding for re/integration in the Balkans.

These strategies, which have met varying degrees of success, include:

  1. Advocating for government funding;
  2. Leveraging private-sector funding and contributions; and
  3. Establishing social enterprises to fund re/integration services.

The article concludes by advocating greater attention to re/integration services for trafficked persons, including working creatively and collaboratively with civil society, government, the private sector and donors, to ensure that re/integration services are conceptualised, implemented and funded in ways that are sustainable and, thus, offer critical support to trafficked persons.