From the Trenches: A Global Survey of Anti-TIP NGOs and their Views of US Efforts

Amid the academic and policy critiques of the United States’ 15-year push to eliminate human trafficking, the perspective of the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working with anti-trafficking advocacy and services has been largely ignored. This article presents the results of a global survey of nearly 500 anti-trafficking NGOs in working in 133 countries, and is the first NGO-focused survey of its kind. Based on the results of the survey, we provide an overview of the anti-trafficking NGO sector as a whole, detail the relationship between anti-trafficking NGOs and the US, and account for some of the variation in NGO opinions of US efforts. Notably, we find that NGOs are remarkably satisfied with US-led efforts—despite their acknowledged flaws—and that NGOs believe that American anti-TIP policies are important and, on balance, helpful. These results also provide a warning for the future of the United States’ anti-trafficking advocacy, suggesting that the US avoid politicizing its annual Trafficking in Persons Report.