Stigma and Trafficking in Indonesia and Ethiopia (ASPIRE)

In 2019, IOM started a new project called ASPIRE (Assessing Stigma for Prevention, Improved Response and Evidence Base), which builds a social norms and stigma informed approach to strengthen prevention activities and improve responses to trafficking and exploitation in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

The project will improve the evidence base on the intersection of social norms and stigma with trafficking in Indonesia and Ethiopia, both as a driver of vulnerability and a barrier to reintegration. The project will use this evidence base to help inform the design and targeting of capacity building activities focused at the structural and community level, as well as community and media engagement. We will be working closely with the IOM offices in Indonesia and Ethiopia to achieve these three outcomes:

  1. Key actors have access to an increased evidence base on social norm and stigma drivers and consequences of trafficking and exploitation and use this to inform the design of interventions.
  2. Key actors at a structural/national level improve their capacity to prevent and respond to trafficking and exploitation, applying a social norms-informed, non-stigmatizing approach.
  3. Key actors at a regional and community level improve their capacity to prevent and respond to trafficking and exploitation, applying a social norms-informed, non-stigmatizing approach.

This project will run to March 2021 and is funded by the UK Home Office Modern Slavery Innovation Fund (MSIF), phase 2.

ASPIRE Project Info Sheet

Trafficking Vulnerabilities Study: Albania, Nigeria and Viet Nam

Between 2017 and 2019, IOM worked with the University of Bedfordshire on a research project exploring vulnerabilities and resilience to human trafficking in Albania, Nigeria and Viet Nam – the top three countries of origin for people referred into the UK National Referral Mechanism (NRM) as potential victims of trafficking. Using IOM’s determinants of migrant vulnerability model (below) to help shape this study, the research widens the evidence base on the contextual factors that can contribute to a trafficking situation at an individual, household and family, community and structural level.                                                             

The project started with ‘Shared Learning Events’ in Albania, Viet Nam and Nigeria, bringing together a range of relevant governmental and non-governmental actors working to share what is already known about trafficking within these countries with a particular focused on trafficking to the UK.

A total of 164 semi-structured interviews were then carried out between February and November 2018 with adults who had experienced trafficking and key informants with knowledge about trafficking in Albania, Viet Nam, Nigeria and the UK.

The research produced the following outputs:

This project was funded by the Home Office Modern Slavery Innovation Fund (MSIF), phase 1.