In partnership with the Office on Women’s Health, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is launching a challenge worth up to $1.8 million to address human trafficking prevention among women and girls in the United States. The challenge aims to award organizations with successful innovative approaches that prevent human trafficking and improve health outcomes related to trafficking among women and girls.
"Human trafficking disproportionately impacts some of the most vulnerable and underserved members of our society," Adm. Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for Health, said in an Aug. 3 HHS news release. "This challenge is one example of a multi-pronged national effort to prevent and end this abhorrent practice that destroys lives."
The challenge was unveiled at the HHS National Human Trafficking Prevention Summit, the release said. In 2021, human trafficking had an effect on 26.7 million people worldwide, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. Individuals are exploited for forced labor, services or commercial sex acts in human trafficking.
Programs that exhibit efficacy in preventing human trafficking and/or improving health outcomes connected to human trafficking among women and girls, sustainable program practices and the capacity of the program to be repeated and/or expanded will be recognized in the national competition, the release said. The National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking and the National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence were used as a guide for developing the challenge.
The objectives of the HHS Task Force to Prevent Human Trafficking are also supported by the challenge, the release said. While anyone can become a victim of human trafficking, those who identify as Black, Latino, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, as well as LGBTQI+, disabled or low-income are among the groups most at risk. Risk factors include migration or relocation, substance addiction, unstable housing, abuse, traumatic childhood experiences and mental health problems.
In addition to raising the risk of liver disease, chronic kidney illness and other autoimmune and neurological disorders, human trafficking can also lead to toxic stress that weakens immunity, according to the release.
The task is divided into two stages, the release said. Twenty $50,000 prizes will be given out in Phase 1 to current creative programs that have shown success in preventing human trafficking and/or improving health outcomes associated with it among women and girls. Eight prizes totaling up to $100,000 will be given out in Phase 2 to programs from Phase 1 that have effectively reproduced, extended or both in order to boost the effectiveness of their program in preventing human trafficking and/or improving the health outcomes associated with it for women and girls.
