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.