Nairobi, 3 October 2023 - A morning of interactive engagements between civil society organizations and the Government of Kenya has passed and it is now the turn for the Trafficking in Persons (TiP) group to present the results of its discussions of the past hour. Athena Morgan, from the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, takes the floor and starts communicating the group’s ideas to address the growing Trafficking in Persons dilemma of the country:
“Kenya recently launched the national plan of action for 2022 to 2027 for combatting TiP. That shows us that legislation-wise we are doing well. But are the people involved in this process aware of what trafficking is? How does it manifests itself? Where to report a case and what are the procedures to follow? The law doesn’t act on its own, it must have people who are implementing it.”
The group nods at this remark, remembering the many cases of survivors wrongfully misapprehended as criminals, exploited children unknowingly originating from trafficking schemes, or sexually exploited women left alone to deal with their trauma.
This perception can be recurrent among civil society organizations in the country. The policies implemented to combat transnational organized crime – which includes trafficking in persons – do not translate into actions in the field.
And most often, it is communities themselves who continue to face the daily harms that illicit economies cause: a culture of firearms, often illegal, to solve conflicts; survivors of human trafficking with no indication of what services exist to support them, and victimized migrants left behind in their attempt to pursue a different life abroad.
Fauziah Wanjiru, from the civil society organization Footprint to Freedom, noted her concerns with certain responses from authorities: “When a victim of human trafficking is identified as a smuggled migrant, and hence deported without any assistance regarding the crimes committed against him or her, we see that there is a big gap between the government, civil society, and the communities. Most people don’t know how to differentiate a smuggled person and a trafficked person.”
But the efforts by the government are there and growing: national plans to coordinate measures against organized crime are being created; regulatory acts against the misuse of firearms are part of the country’s legal system; and institutions supporting human trafficking survivors, meanwhile, are reaching more territories every day.
This gap between the work of civil society organizations, committed to protect human rights and support those most affected by crime and corruption, collides with the responsibility of states committed to protect their citizens and to produce the structures to prosecute those responsible for transnational organized crime. Two actors, with different approaches, seeking the same outcome.
Finding a way to harmonize both views, and to extract the best of both worlds, becomes a necessity to achieving security and stability, including for the implementation of the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC).
Adopted in 2000, UNTOC provides an international legal and criminal justice framework for combatting organized crime. The Convention and its three Protocols provide a structure for States parties to update their legislation to be better able to investigate and prosecute criminal actors.
But its provisions need to be translated into impacting positively the lives of those it deems to support, and reviewing its effectiveness has been at the core of the agenda since 2018 when the UNTOC Review Mechanism was adopted. The Review Mechanism encourages collaboration between civil society actors and governments, particularly in finding synergies and benefiting from the lessons, expertise, capacities, initiatives, and community closeness brought by civil society.
The first of its kind in Africa, the Voluntary Pilot Initiative (VPI), the collaborative space with government participation where Athena Morgan, Fauziah Wanjiru and other 33 civil society representatives gathered to express their contributions, is the latest effort prompted by the Government of Kenya and supported by UNODC to advance in the implementation of UNTOC in the country, and hence, in boosting mechanisms, laws, and assistance related to the harms caused by transnational organized crime.
Further to opening a space for collaboration, the VPI allowed civil society organizations in the country to coordinate their work and facilitate communication with the government by identifying a centralized mechanism to pass on recommendations, concerns, and accomplishments. In the same line, this opportunity allowed the government to gather priorities for action (related to the implementation of the UNTOC) from the heart of communities and translate them into their institutional plan of action. Looking ahead, the Kenya Civil Society Alliance created during the VPI will have as a main objective to maintain an active communication channel with the government and oversee the commitments agreed on.
A direct result of the VPI, the Kenyan Civil Society Alliance is a pioneer group of committed individuals setting up an example for the continent of what can be achieved when governments and civil society align their courses of action. The indigenous trees planted at the United Nations Office in Nairobi in commemoration of this occasion will be a reminder of the bond between these two actors working tirelessly for a safer, flourishing country.
