TIP Office International Programs to Combat Human Trafficking Technical Assistance for Survivor Leadership Programming

The Department of States Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP Office) is pleased to invite organizations to submit proposals to provide technical assistance focused on establishing survivor leadership and partnership structures in support of its global Training and Technical Assistance (T) Program. The Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP Office) announces an open competition for projects to provide technical assistance focused on establishing survivor1 leadership and partnership structures 1 For simplicity and consistency, the terms “survivor” and “survivor leader” are used throughout this document. While some individuals who have experienced trafficking choose to embrace the title “survivor,” others do not. Terminology regarding human trafficking varies based on a country’s respective laws and language(s). The word “survivor” is not generally defined by law, nor is it in support of its global Training and Technical Assistance (T&TA) Program. The TIP Office manages foreign assistance programs dedicated to combating human trafficking outside of the United States. The TIP Office awards grants to combat all forms of human trafficking—sex trafficking, child sex trafficking, forced labor, domestic servitude, forced child labor, and the unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers. The Department of State’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report) provides a diagnostic assessment of the efforts of governments to combat human trafficking and shapes our foreign assistance priorities. More information is available at: https://www.state.gov/international-programs-officeto-monitor-and-combat-trafficking-in-persons/. The TIP Office’s Training and Technical Assistance (T&TA) program aims to increase government and/or civil society capacity to combat human trafficking. T&TA is most appropriate for addressing specific knowledge or other capacity gaps through targeted, short-term interventions. The TIP Office can provide training and/or technical assistance on topics spanning all 4Ps – Prevention, Protection, Prosecution, and Partnership. T&TA interventions are most often initiated by requests from U.S. Embassies abroad, or sometimes from our T&TA implementing partners. The TIP Office reviews requests for T&TA on a rolling basis throughout the year. Selected T&TA requests are then referred by the TIP Office to the relevant implementer, depending on the type of assistance requested, the implementer’s areas of universally used or accepted in the context of human trafficking. In some countries, “survivor” may refer to those who have experienced historical, collective, or cultural trauma. Within the United States, there are some widely used terms for individuals who have experienced human trafficking and subsequently decided to engage in anti-trafficking related work on a professional level. Individuals may prefer to be referred to as “survivor leaders,” “survivor advocates,” or “subject matter experts with lived experience of human trafficking.” Some may have other titles or prefer not to identify based on this experience at all. In recognizing individuals’ full life experiences, skill sets, and professional goals, it is important to always ask someone how they want to be identified. Policymakers and stakeholders should not assume that someone who identifies as a “survivor leader,” “survivor advocate,” or “expert with lived experience of human trafficking” should be referred to as such in a professional setting or that identification as a survivor leader makes it acceptable to inquire about someone’s personal experience with human trafficking. expertise, and funding availability. The timeline to complete T&TA activities will depend on a variety of factors such as strategic priorities and country contexts. The selected implementer should be able to create an intervention concept note and budget in response to the specific T&TA request before the intervention is approved for implementation. The selected implementer should also expect to work closely with TIP Office staff throughout the development and implementation of interventions and activities. T&TA interventions can be standalone or they can lay the groundwork for or complement other programing, but they do not take the place of longer, multiyear programs. Individual T&TA interventions can sometimes also be structured in phases, with each phase being subject to TIP Office approval. T&TA activities may be conducted in countries across all regions of the world, so the scope of T&TA implementers’ capabilities must be global. The selected applicant should be able to respond to unanticipated requests for assistance in any country and/or region, with few exceptions. Some examples of what past T&TA interventions have looked like include the following: • Review of and edits to draft legislation or implementing regulations on a 24-hour turnaround; • Development and adoption of Foreign Government National Action Plan over the course of five months from receipt of request to final adoption; • Targeted technical assistance on the process to accede to United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) and the Palermo Protocol; • Rapid diagnostic needs assessment on anti-trafficking capacity gaps of specialized anti-trafficking practitioners conducted within 4 weeks of initial request, followed by the development and delivery of a tailored training curriculum; • Tailored trainings delivered to law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges on how to build a human trafficking case in a country with limited resources and low capacity; • Tailored trainings delivered to shelter staff to improve identification, screening, and assistance of victims of trafficking, as well as technical assistance to develop necessary tools, such as screening forms and risk assessments; • Creation and implementation of a training series curriculum tailored to psychological and legal service providers to victims of trafficking in urban and rural locations both virtually and in-person, delivered over the course of several months; • Regional training for law enforcement and prosecutors, tailoring the materials to for applicability across various participating countries in the region. While some T&TA activities can be conducted remotely, and the ability to provide some programming virtually is an asset to the T&TA Program and to the selected implementers, the majority of T&TA activities are conducted in-person. Because T&TA interventions can take place in settings where utilities, such as internet connectivity, are unreliable, the TIP Office will not be able to consider applications whose model of T&TA delivery is entirely remote.