ASEAN

Australia is supporting UNW regional programme “Stepping up Solutions to Eliminate Violence against Women and Girls in Asia and the Pacific (2017-2020)”. The programme focuses on VAW prevention, data and evidence building. Japan supports a regional programme on preventing and mitigating the impact of trafficking, transnational crime and terrorism. The programme aims for at-risk border communities to become more resilient to human trafficking, with a specific focus on women. UNW has worked with corporate partners to set standards such as the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), which offer practical guidance to businesses on how to empower women in the workplace, marketplace, and community.

A21 is an anti-human trafficking organisation with a 3-tiered approach to Reach, Rescue and Restore victims of trafficking around the world. It currently operates in 14 countries globally.

ABN AMRO is one of FAST commissioners. They are one of the few banks that are vocal about human rights being a key focus area of their sustainability policy. It tackles TIP through: Developing tools and know-how; Public Private Partnerships such as with the European Bankers Alliance and the Mekong Club; conducting human rights due diligence not just for large corporate clients but also small and medium- sized enterprises and private individuals.

US-based organisation that aims to combat child trafficking in Cambodia through a holistic approach of Prevent, Rescue, Restore, and Reintegrate.

AAT aims to prevent and protect women and children in Southeast Asia from sexual exploitation and trafficking through a range of programs and services.

Amnesty is a UK-based charity focused on human rights. Within Southeast Asia it has thrown the spotlight on the plight of the Rohingya refugees.

With the exception of Cambodia, all AMS are members of the APG, which is focused on ensuring that its members effectively implement the international standards against money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing related to weapons of mass destruction. Australia holds the permanent Chair. PPATK (Indonesian FIU) and AUSTRAC (Australian FIU) co-hosted the APG Human Trafficking and People Smuggling Workshop in 2019 in Bandung.

APPLE won the Thomson Reuters Foundation Stop Slavery Award in 2018 that recognises efforts by companies to identify, investigate and eradicate forced labour from their supply chains. It also partnered with the IOM in an initiative to assist victims of human trafficking to get behind-the-scenes jobs at its retail stores.

ACWC is tasked with upholding rights contained in the Convention on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which all ten ASEAN Member States have ratified. Some of its recent relevant activities include: launch of the Regional Guidelines and Procedures to Address the Needs of Victims of Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (2019); regional campaign(s) to promote ACTIP and its linkage to VAW; and the implementation of the ASEAN Gender Sensitive Guideline for Handling Women Victims of Human trafficking developed in 2016.

ACMW is chiefly responsible for the implementation of the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers and ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers which was adopted in 2017. It reports to the Senior Labour Officials Meeting (SLOM). Under its Action Plan 2018-2025, ACMW will support the Bohol TIP Work Plan as well as work with ILO on the Triangle in ASEAN program. ACMW also hosts the annual ASEAN Forum on Migrant Labour (AFML) which is the region’s biggest forum that brings together government officials from 10 ASEAN Member States, workers’ organisations, employers’ organisations and civil society organisations at national and regional levels, the ASEAN Secretariat, and international organisations to discuss and exchange views on various issues relating to the rights of intra-ASEAN migrant workers.

DGICM promotes regional cooperation such as information sharing, capacity building programmes and best practices in border management, consular and immigration related matters. It supports ASEAN’s efforts to combat illegal migrants and other forms of trans-national crime. It is one of the stakeholders in the Bohol TIP Work Plan.

ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR): AICHR is the overarching human rights institution in ASEAN with overall responsibility for the promotion and protection of human rights in ASEAN. The AICHR developed the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) and the Phnom Penh Statement on the Adoption of the AHRD (the Phnom Penh Statement), which were adopted and signed in 2012. AICHR has a supporting role in the Bohol TIP Work Plan. It also has ongoing work to mainstream the rights of people with disabilities within ASEAN.

Under the Bohol TIP Work Plan, SOMED supports the delivery of numerous activities under the Prevention Component. It is chiefly responsible for conducting surveys on how each AMS integrate TIP in school curriculum and information awareness campaign regarding victim’s rights using social media.

PROSPECT focuses on: 1) Strengthen ASEAN’s capacity to respond to transnational crimes and non-traditional security threats, e.g. implementation of ACTIP; 2) Promote rules-based ASEAN; 3) Promote civil society engagement on critical regional issues, such as corruption, protecting rights of migrant workers, and countering violent extremism; 4) Promote human rights and expand opportunities for underserved populations, including women and youth.

ADFM is a Track 2 process that complements the Bali Process. It brings together government and non-government experts from nine affected countries and representatives from UNHCR and IOM. It is regarded as a leading expert group on issues of forced migration in the region.

APWLD is a network of feminist organisations and individual activists in Asia Pacific that seeks to advance women’s human rights and development justice.

Based in Hong Kong, APMM supports the empowerment of migrants and their movement-building through advocacy and lobbying, education and research, and organizing and network-building

The Bali Process is an Asia-Pacific forum for policy dialogue, information sharing and practical cooperation to address people smuggling, trafficking in persons and related transnational crime. It is co-chaired by Indonesia and Australia and has 49 members including IOM, ILO, UNHCR, UNODC. The Bali Process Government and Business Forum is a Track 1.5 process that brings together influential business leaders and ministers to implement regional strategies to eradicate forced labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour.

The Body Shop collaborated with ECPAT International in 2010-2011 to campaign globally to Stop Trafficking of Children & Youth. The campaign collected more than seven million petitions which were delivered to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Based in Kuala Lumpur, CARAM Asia is a regional network of 42 members spanning across Asia and the Middle East. It promotes the protection of migrants’ labour and health rights with a focus on HIV and AIDS issues.

CCR CSR is a consulting business on child rights in businesses supply chains, working in a number of Asian countries including China, Hong Kong, Myanmar, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Laos, Malaysia and Indonesia. It helps companies improve their direct and indirect impact on children and through it, strengthen their sustainable business.

CREST is a regional partnership initiative that aims to realize the potential of businesses to uphold the human and labour rights of migrant workers in their operations and supply chains. It works with businesses that are committed to eliminating modern slavery and implementing ethical recruitment standards that address migrant workers’ vulnerabilities.

Based in Bangkok, ECPAT is a global network of over 110 civil society organisations focused on ending sexual exploitation of children through prostitution; trafficking; online and in the travel and tourism sector. It advocates for change with governments and the international community, and works to better understand the problem through research. ECPAT adopts a rights-based and child-sensitive approach toward helping child victims of sexual exploitation and abuse to understand their rights, access to justice, and find medical, psychological and social support services.

Edelman, a global communications firm, has partnered with STOP THE TRAFFIK to drive awareness on the issue of human trafficking in Southeast Asia. At the same time, Edelman will use data-driven approach to identify the patterns and signs of trafficking, while also collecting data from STT’s STOP app to understand, track and disrupt trafficking patterns.

E-READI aims to support ASEAN’s regional integration through cooperation in areas of joint interest. One of the thematic areas of the program looks at promoting dialogue on human rights, gender equality and empowerment of women and girls, and safe migration and labour mobility. It is a follow-up to the READI and READI Human Rights programmes.

London-based charity that works with entities on the frontlines of environmental destruction to investigate, document and expose environmental and human rights abuses. Some of its work include: Exposing human rights abuses taking place in Thailand’s seafood sector; child labour and illegal fishing in Vietnam’s fishing industry.

ETI is an alliance of companies, trade unions and NGOs that promotes respect for workers’ rights globally.

Human rights NGO that works to investigate, engage and defend the rights of human rights defenders. Its work includes looking at human trafficking and indefinite detention of refugees in Southeast Asia.

Freedom Collective is an online community-based platform that facilitates collaborative learning and deeper engagement among stakeholders working to end human trafficking. It is a joint project by Chab Dai and Liberty Shared.

Freedom Fund mobilises capital to invest in “hotspot” projects – clusters of the most effective community-based organisations tackling modern slavery. It has two projects in Southeast Asia: 1) reducing the number of Myanmar women and girls trafficked into China for forced marriage and childbearing; and 2) reducing slavery in the Thai seafood industry through supporting the private sector to improve transparency and adopt ethical labour practices in the supply chain, etc.

Based in Bangkok, GAATW is an alliance of more than 80 non-governmental organisations globally that promotes and defends the human rights of all migrants and their families.

GFEMS seeks to sustainably end modern slavery by making it economically unprofitable. It works with businesses to develop new tools to detect and mitigate forced labor risks in deep and opaque supply chains; builds the capacity of criminal justice and regulatory systems to identify, protect and secure remedies for victims; and to punish traffickers; invests in new technologies and tools to detect and disrupt trafficker operations.

Hagar International Foundation is a Swiss-registered international NGO since 1994 with mission to see communities free and healed from the trauma of human trafficking, slavery, and abuse. Hagar works in 10 countries – Afghanistan, America, Australia, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Myanmar, New Zealand, Singapore, Solomon Island, and United Kingdom. Hagar focuses on individuals who have endured severe mental and/or physical trauma, and who have survived extreme abuse as a result of to human trafficking, domestic violence or sexual assault by providing recovery services such as shelter, counselling, case management services, legal support, education, life skills training, job skills training and job placement assistance, reintegration and repatriation support. Over the past two decades, Hagar has earned a reputation for working with the “toughest cases” such as the young children, adolescents, and those repeatedly abused. Hagar is also developing research, leading advocacy and building the capacity of other organizations, to improve prevention and strengthen after-care services especially in the area of Trauma Informed Care.

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Hope for Justice seeks to end modern slavery by preventing exploitation, rescuing victims, restoring lives and reforming society. It launched the Slave Free Alliance comprising of global multinationals and small businesses that are committed to a slave-free supply chain.

HRW is a New York-based NGO that conducts research and advocacy on human rights abuses all over the world. It has investigated and exposed bride trafficking from Asia to China, forced labour in Thai fishing industry, and the Rohingya refugee crisis, etc.

IBM worked with STOP THE TRAFFIK to develop the Traffik Analysis Hub, a global data sharing and analysis platform. The AI-powered TA hub can be used by various stakeholders including businesses and NGOs to recognize and detect specific human trafficking terms and incidents, and better identify the characteristics of human trafficking, such as recruitment and transportation. The key objective of the TA Hub is to reduce the rewards/ profits for traffickers and raise the risks/ costs for them to move money and recruit people. Since it was created it has built up a global community of law enforcement and government agencies, financial institutions, educational and academic institutions, and NGOs.

ICMEC launched the Asia-Pacific Financial Coalition Against Child Sexual Exploitation in 2009 to broaden the fight against the online sale and dissemination of child sexual exploitation materials and live on-demand sexual abuse of children via video platforms. The APFC has since become a prominent child protection force in the region, providing a platform for law enforcement, regulatory bodies, companies, and non-profit organizations to share, leverage, and collaborate against online child exploitation.

IJM is a US-based NGO that focuses on combating modern slavery. It rescues and supports victims of violence, forced labor, or sex trafficking with recovery; works with local law enforcement with investigations and prosecutions; and supports the strengthening of the justice systems. It also provides customized aftercare for survivors that includes trauma counseling, safe shelter and vocational training or education; and engages in capacity building for police, government officials and CSOs.

JWB supports victims of labour exploitation and human trafficking in seeking compensation against their abusers, even after they return home. In Asia, they work across Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines to grow the capacity for access to justice.

Liberty Shared is a Hong Kong-based charity that aims to prevent human trafficking through legal advocacy, technological interventions, and strategic collaborations with NGOs, corporations, and financial institutions in Southeast Asia. It has developed strategic corporate partnerships with companies such as HSBC and Salesforce. It manages the Freedom Collaborative (with support from USAID Asia CTIP), which is an online platform to facilitate cross-border cooperation between anti-trafficking service providers in Asia, through tools and services for data and information sharing.

London-based law firm Linklaters is committed to the UN SDGs and UN Global Compact, and declares itself as a responsible business while addressing its obligations under the UK Modern Slavery Act. As part of its Corporate Social Responsibility, it is using its legal skills to support the global fight against human trafficking and modern slavery. It supports victims of trafficking in Asia as part of its probono work. Its offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand have partnered with Hagar International, Liberty Shared, MAST, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Visayan Forum Foundation in undertaking research and legal analysis of anti-trafficking legislation.

Macquarie Group Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Macquarie Group. The Foundation’s projects in Asia are focused on preventing and responding to modern slavery, especially issues affecting migrant domestic workers. In 2019 it commissioned a regional report that looks at forced labour among female migrant domestic workers in Asia, highlighting the plight of Indonesian and Filipino women.

MMN is a regional network of research organisations in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) and China that aims to exchange information and conduct joint activities in the areas of advocacy, capacity building, information monitoring, and research and publication.

MFA is a regional network of NGOs, associations and trade unions of migrant workers, and individual advocates in Asia who are committed to protect and promote the rights and welfare of migrant workers.

Nexus Institute specializes in human trafficking and related issues. It has worked on less-considered issues such as trafficking in men, labor trafficking, trafficking involving socially-marginalized groups as well as strategies addressing economic prevention and root causes. Its research has supported law reform and legislative analysis (including on anti-trafficking legislation and national plans of action), development of training curricula for law enforcement, judges/prosecutors and service providers.

US-based organisation Polaris announced recently that it will work with Paypal to combat TIP through a newly formed Financial Intelligence Unit. The Unit will leverage intelligence from the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline and other sources to interrupt trafficker cash flows and enable prosecutions for financial crimes including money laundering.

PILnet builds networks and collaborations of public and private lawyers who use their knowledge to strengthen civil society and the communities they serve. Within Asia it has an office in Hong Kong.

IOM’s thematic priorities for the region include: protecting migrants in vulnerable situations, including victims of human trafficking and associated forms of exploitation and abuse; working with the private sector to protect migrant workers throughout the labour migration cycle; and building the capacity of relevant border agencies.

RESPECT is founded by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), Babson College’s Initiative on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery, and IOM. Its key initiatives are: i) Interactive map for business of anti-human trafficking organisations; and ii) Tech Against Trafficking, launched in June 2018, is a coalition of technology companies collaborating with global experts to eradicate human trafficking using technology.

Active in six Asian countries, the program aims to promote responsible business practices into the operations of multinational companies and their supply chains. It supports investors and businesses to have a better understanding of socially responsible business practices and assists companies and governments to improve performance on environmental standards and respect for human rights, including labour rights, of workers in supply chains..

Safe & Fair is part of the Spotlight Initiative which is a global, multi-year partnership between EU and UN to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls by 2030. Safe & Fair aims to make labour migration governance more responsive to the needs of women, to reduce the risks of violence and trafficking of women migrant workers through improved access to information and well-coordinated gender-responsive services.

The Project aims to reduce human trafficking in the fishing sector by strengthening coordination and increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of existing national and regional level anti-trafficking efforts in Southeast Asia. A regional coordination body will be established to support collaborative approaches, develop and implement joint strategies, and share information. The project will be regional in nature, with a particular focus on Indonesia and Thailand.

SOMSWD comprises of senior officials in the respective ministries in-charge of social welfare and development. It supports ther delivery of numerous activities under the Bohol TIP Work Plan particularly in the prevention and protection components.

SOMTC is the implementing and monitoring body to the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime (AMMTC), which is the highest policymaking body responsible for transnational crime including trafficking in persons. SOMTC oversees the implementation of ACTIP’s ASEAN Plan of Action with the support of the SOMTC Working Group on Trafficking in Persons (SOMTC WG-TIP). SOMTC is the main counterpart of the ASEAN-ACT.

US-based organisation with offices in Asia to raise awareness about the causes and the extent of trafficking for forced labor and implements programs with partners worldwide to combat this problem. Its programs address each of the four “Ps” that are part of the anti-trafficking toolkit: prevention, protection of victims, prosecution (access to justice) and partnerships.

As an international bank with a strong presence in Asia , SC seeks to combat modern slavery and human trafficking through a variety of means: Defining the “financial fingerprint of modern slavery”; assessing risks and conducting investigations; playing an active role in industry initiatives (such as The Liechtenstein Initiative, TMC, Traffik Analysis Hub, APG Human Trafficking and People Smuggling Workshop); building tools and raising awareness; partnering with law enforcement agencies and NGOs; and sharing best practices and peers and mobilising industry action. The bank has partnered with Liberty Shared in intelligence sharing about TIP with the aim of identifying suspicious activity and disrupting access to finance for the criminals.

UK-based STOP THE TRAFFIK works to prevent human trafficking globally through an Intelligence-led approach. It launched the STOP APP in 2016, the first of its kind to enable people anywhere in the world to report suspicious incidents of human trafficking anonymously and securely. It partnered IBM to create The Traffik Analysis Hub (TAHub), the first ever international data hub to facilitate the sharing of information about human trafficking across all industries and sectors.

Terre des hommes fights child exploitation in Asia through poverty alleviation, protection, legal aid, lobbying, focusing on Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines and Thailand. It provides rescued children protection, education and medical and psychological help.

The Asia Foundation partners with governments, law enforcement, justice officials, policymakers, service providers, community leaders, and survivors to prevent and respond to trafficking. Since 2018, it has been supporting the Australian Government with implementation of ACTIP. It also supports national level projects in collaboration with e.g. Laos Women’s Union, Cambodia National Committee for Counter Trafficking, Myanmar Library Association, etc

TMC brings together major companies from four industries (Banking, Manufacturing, Hospitality and Retail) to address modern slavery in their supply chains and business practices. Most of these are Fortune 500 companies and they meet every quarterly to discuss and develop recommendations for the industries, including developing toolkits, training programs, data updates, and other resources.

The Remedy Project’s work focuses on three core areas: Business and human rights, mechanisms for the remediation of worker grievances in supply chains, and combating trafficking in persons, forced labour, and other forms of exploitation.

The Remedy Project works directly with private sector clients, industry bodies and trade associations, governments, UN agencies, international aid organizations, and civil society groups to support their needs.

Thomas Reuters Foundation is the corporate foundation of Thomson Reuters, a global news and information services company. Through news, media development, and convening initiatives, it joins global efforts in eradicating human trafficking, forced labour and modern-day slavery.

Triangle in ASEAN will create a suite of policies, tools and services to improve labour migration governance in the region. It delivers services directly to migrant workers and their communities through a network of Migrant Worker Resource Centres (MRCs) established in the six focus countries. It has a strong focus on female migrant workers and engaging with the private sector.

UNICEF is coordinating the implementation of a cross-regional, multi-country program, co-funded by the EU, to ensure that children affected by migration are protected and their rights promoted. Within ASEAN it is being implemented in Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand. The program runs from 2018-2021. One of its objectives is to work with key ASEAN intergovernmental bodies to prioritize the rights and protection of migrant children. UNICEF is also working with businesses to protect, respect and support children’s rights in the workplace, marketplace and community.

UN-ACT serves as a Secretariat to the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking (COMMIT Process). It promotes regional cooperation between COMMIT countries and other countries or regional mechanism. It also promotes evidence-based research and supports the capacity of the civil society and non-state actors in combating TIP. It has a regional office in Bangkok, Thailand and has offices in COMMIT member states, including Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand,and Vietnam.

Under its thematic focus of transnational organised crime, UNODC seeks to enhance the capacities and skills of law enforcement agencies to effectively identify and combat human trafficking operations. It is also focused on improving regional criminal justice systems through the establishment of international standards and norms and the enhancement of police capacities for crime prevention.

FAST aims to implement the “Blueprint for Mobilizing Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking” to help end modern slavery, human trafficking, forced labour and child labour in accordance with Target 8.7 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Blueprint provides a shared collective-action framework that different financial sector actors can implement in their own ways and at their own speeds.

USAID Asia CTIP is a $21 million regional initiative that works to reduce TIP by identifying and disseminating successful evidence-based practices in TIP interventions and research; enhancing cooperation between source, transit and destination countries; and increasing opportunities for private sector leadership. Supports bilateral and regional agreements, particularly the ACTIP. It also works to improve effectiveness of civil society networks in policy advocacy and monitoring, as well as best practices in victim identification, service provision, behavior change campaigns, private sector networks and other areas.

A seven-year (2016-2023) program, USAID Asia CTIP is a regional activity that focuses on transnational and regional challenges to combat TIP. The program aims to reduce TIP in Asia through a coordinated and consolidated action by governments, civil society and business that will foster cross-border cooperation, develop opportunities for private sector leadership and improve the quality of data associated with human trafficking.

Verite exposes labor rights violations in supply chains and works with companies and NGOs to remedy them. Some of its work include: forced labour in the palm oil, manufacturing and seafood industries in ASEAN.

Christian organisation that works on a range of issues including clean water and energy, health and livelihoods. It also supports female victims of trafficking and GBV with short-term crisis care, safe housing, family assessments, medical care, counseling, and education. It supports early reintegration when possible, or referrals to mid- or long-term shelters.

From 2012-16, World Vision implemented a five-year anti-trafficking programme, ‘End Trafficking in Persons’ (ETIP), across the six countries of the GMS region (Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and China), with funding from DFAT. The ETIP seeks to combat trafficking through prevention, protection, and policy advocacy at local, national, and regional levels. It is succeeded by the “End Violence Against Children” campaign which will focus, in the Asia Pacific region, on physical violence in schools and the home, corporal punishment in all settings, sexual abuse, child labour, child trafficking and child marriage. Post ETIP, WV has also supported AAPTIP’s work to enhance the prosecution and protection pillars.