You’d be forgiven for thinking that engaging survivors of trafficking around matters that concern them is standard practice. After all, as one north African writer put it, policies and programmes should not be "what we think [survivors] need but what [survivors] know they need''. But it’s not as common as you might hope.
We at Azadi Kenya, a survivor-led organisation that provides long-term support and capacity development for survivors of trafficking, recently worked with the University of Liverpool to assess the nature and effectiveness of survivor engagement in anti-trafficking. We see this as essential work, as only by understanding current engagement can we ensure that new policies and programmes are in sync with the evolving needs of survivors.
Unfortunately, we found many hindrances to the full and meaningful engagement of survivors. We would like to walk you through a few of them now.
