Dear friends and partners in the fight against human trafficking,
It is with great anticipation that we look forward to the 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report). We are eager for your insight as we seek to understand the current trafficking situation on the ground, both here in the United States and around the world. As we continue to battle COVID-19 and respond to new challenges, the anti-trafficking movement has shown incredible resilience and ability to adapt.
Through your work on the front lines to combat human trafficking, you see the way governments are confronting this challenge. You know which practices are succeeding and where efforts are falling short. Whether you are contributing to this struggle halfway around the world or right here in the United States, your observations will be critical to the U.S. Department of State as we draft the 2023 TIP Report. This “request for information" is critical to our work at the Trafficking in Persons Office, and we urge all within the anti-trafficking community to respond. Details on this request can be found in the Federal Register Notice. Please also refer to the guide for submitting responses here. The deadline for submission is Feb. 1, 2023.
As we have in previous years, we invite you to submit information about new trends in human trafficking; examples of governments’ successes and challenges in prosecution, victim identification and protection, and efforts to prevent trafficking; and lessons learned in combating trafficking, including examples of effective anti-trafficking laws, policies, and programs. We also invite you to share information on how governments have addressed trafficking in underserved and vulnerable communities, including whether it equitably enforced its laws, whether it provided the same quality and level of access to services to all communities, and whether it implemented or tried to address any policies that further marginalized communities already overrepresented among trafficking victims, increasing their risk to human trafficking. In addition, we are particularly interested in hearing from you about examples of promising practices and recommendations for building mutual, sustainable partnerships to further the collective anti-trafficking movement, including how to better build such partnerships with individuals with lived experience of human trafficking.
Finally, if you would like to share any current public awareness campaign materials, such as trafficking-related photos, billboards, posters, murals, or art, in high resolution (1 MB or more) with us, these may be featured (with credit) in the 2023 TIP Report.
As always, your contributions will help us continue to make the TIP Report a helpful resource and the standard for reporting on government efforts to comprehensively address human trafficking. We look forward to receiving your input as we continue our work together to combat human trafficking. If you have any suggestions for how we can improve the way we collect information from the public for the TIP Report, please feel free to share that with us so we can improve your experience and our processes. In particular, I am hoping to hear your thoughts and ideas on the below areas:
* What can we do to improve the request for information?
* What are the areas, questions, or topics that are the most important?
* What are the areas, questions, or topics that should be cut down or are not as useful?
* Are there any relevant information or topics the request for information does not adequately capture?
Thank you for taking the time and effort to contribute to the TIP Report.
Best Regards,
Kari Johnstone
Acting Director
Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
U.S. Department of State
Source: U.S Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
