Members of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) have long worked with survivors to shape their work. Some were even surprised when we asked them if they involve people with lived experience – for them it was self-obvious. Others explained that engaging with survivors is a risky business, and that the countries they operate in have even deported non-nationals for speaking up against harmful policies.
Since August, we have been interviewing our members about their histories, programmes, target groups, successes, challenges, and more. We particularly wanted to know about the role of survivors in project implementation and decision making. The results so far – from around 30 NGOs – showed a diverse range of practices and contexts. We’ve summarised some of the responses here, in an early look at our findings.
Looking the part
At least seven groups have survivors of trafficking, migrants, or sex workers in their staff and on their boards. They are not always there because of what their lived experience brings to policy or programme development. At times it has more to do with ensuring a culturally sensitive environment for their clients. As Anita Teekah from Safe Horizon’s anti-trafficking programme said, “I want to make sure that our workers look like the clients we’re serving.”
