The Role of Connections in Dismantling Human Trafficking

May 27, 2016

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Parosha Chandran, quote: "We are each respoonsible for doing all we can to help stop human trafficking in today's world. Don't close your eyes to modern slavery. It's what the traffickers want." Parosha Chandran, United Kingdom. Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Heroine, 2015
n late March 2016, Lebanese authorities dismantled one of the largest human trafficking rings in Lebanon’s history — freeing 75 mostly Syrian women who were fraudulently recruited from Syria and forced into prostitution in Lebanon, experiencing physical abuse and forced abortions. One of the Lebanese officers leading the raid on the trafficking ring — Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Badran — had participated in an International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) focused on preventing and dismantling human trafficking.  

Badran said the knowledge gained from his IVLP experience helped him to take action that resulted in the arrest of the traffickers and identified and assisted the trafficking victims in Lebanon.

Many other members of the IVLP network have also gone on to contribute to anti-trafficking efforts. When Kevin Campbell, Vice President of a U.S. non-profit called Global Ops for The Exodus Road, learned earlier this year of a sex trafficking situation in Bahrain, he knew exactly whom to contact. He called Faeza Khan, Head of Bahrain’s Migrant Workers Rights Unit at the Labor Market Regulatory Authority. Campbell had met Khan during an IVLP meeting in 2015. This connection led Bahraini officials to locate and repatriate 12 Thai women who had been forced into sex trafficking.

Following the successful mission, Khan acknowledged how IVLP helps participants forge valuable networks. She wrote, “This experience was really such a great result of the IVLP program to be able to save another human being with whom we had no personal contact and all because a person in Denver reached out to me and I applied the logic I learned from the trip to save a life.”

Additionally, each year in June we bring TIP Heroes from around the world to the United States, where they receive awards from the Secretary of State, then meet with civil rights, local, and legal groups across the country on an IVLP.

All of these people have dedicated their lives to anti-trafficking efforts, and exchanges are helping them connect and work together to end modern slavery.

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