Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 28

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Paragraph text
Prevention programmes should also strategically target individuals who are at particular risk of being trafficked. This essentially requires a careful assessment of the salient characteristics of individuals who are being trafficked from a particular community to understand why they are vulnerable to trafficking. The experience of the United Nations inter-agency project on human trafficking in South-East Asia confirms that research into the circumstances in which people are trafficked is crucial, for it is the most important method by which evidence on the experience of trafficked persons is collected and by which preventive strategies can be made evidence-based, rather than being based on guesses or prejudice. The needs assessment of one village in the Lao People's Democratic Republic carried out by the project reinforces this point. The village was initially targeted for a microfinance project aimed at preventing trafficking, having regard to certain risk factors. This included the fact that the village was one of the poorest provinces, inhabited by the Hmong ethnic minority population, which has limited access to education and a low literacy rate. The needs assessment revealed, however, that there was a low risk of trafficking, as the village was far from the main road and traffickers were not known to be active in the area. Furthermore, the population did not have much aspiration or desire to seek another lifestyle. Thus, while donors were keen to invest resources in this project for the purpose of preventing trafficking, this would have achieved very little in terms of prevention, as the project was not strategically targeted at vulnerable populations.
Legal status
Non-negotiated soft law
Body
Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children
Document type
Special Procedures' report
Means of adoption
N.A.
Topic(s)
  • Violence
Year
2010
Paragraph type
Other
Paragraph number
28