After experiencing human trafficking, many survivors face significant financial insecurity – a lack employment opportunities, family financial pressures and anxieties, responsibility for family debts, insufficient safety nets, and economic marginalization, deepening their vulnerability to experiencing further violence and exploitation. Survivors often identify financial stability, particularly safe employment, among their highest priorities. However, many economic empowerment programs do not successfully connect survivors to sustainable employment opportunities, push survivors into vocational paths that are not of interest for them, or require survivors to live in shelters in order to access training.
In order for the anti-trafficking community to implement effective economic empowerment programming, it is important to first understand what economic empowerment means to survivors themselves. Listening to people who have experienced human trafficking is vital in ensuring that programming and policy match the priorities of survivors. We conducted a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project using photovoice to understand what economic empowerment means to survivors of human trafficking and gender-based violence (GBV). Photovoice is a participatory action research method that engages community members in taking photographs as a mechanism for sharing about their experiences and exploring shared concerns. In our photovoice study, survivors collected study data, were trained in data analysis, and analyzed study data themselves.
In our photovoice study, survivors defined economic empowerment for themselves, leading to the creation of a framework for economic empowerment. This framework can serve as a guide for service providers to structure, refine, and evaluate their programs. This survivor-defined framework for economic empowerment includes seven key dimensions:
- Basic Needs for Self and Family: Meeting one’s own daily needs as well as family members’ essential needs, with economic empowerment defined as a collective rather than individual experience
- Safe Employment with Benefits: Safe employment offering comprehensive benefits, worker protection, and a pathway for growth
- Holistic Education: Access to formal education as well as ongoing, holistic life skills development
- Financial Management: Skill development in financial management, support in escaping cycles of debt, and opportunities to build assets
- Goal Achievement: Overcoming personal challenges, problem-solving, and achieving one’s own goals for oneself
- Psychosocial wellbeing: Having mental and emotional strength, building self-care mechanisms, strengthening self-regulation skills, and nurturing self-confidence
- Support Systems: Experiencing an emotionally safe environment, non-judgmental support systems, and safe, accepting relationships
Although many economic empowerment programs for survivors focus solely on training or employment, this survivor-defined framework illustrates that economic empowerment cannot be reduced to these dimensions. Each of these core components are interconnected and critically important to survivors themselves. This framework underscores the importance of culturally-responsive and trauma-informed economic empowerment programs, as well as services that integrate attention to psychological wellbeing in the context of financial security. Findings highlight the importance of safe employment that offers comprehensive benefits as well as pathways for growth. Additionally, findings caution against programs that lead to greater indebtedness, and reinforce the importance of savings and financial literacy programming. For further details regarding this study, please refer to our research brief, as well as our publication in the Journal of Human Trafficking.
