The event was organized ahead of the launch of ABA ROLI’s Action to Reduce and Respond to Exploitation and Trafficking (ARRETE) program in the DRC, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). ARRETE is a five-year program that seeks to improve the government of DRC’s response to trafficking through improved coordination and collaboration with international, national, and local organizations and leaders. The celebration for World Day against Trafficking in Persons provided an ideal platform for DRC’s frontline C-TIP (Countering Trafficking in Persons) actors to mobilize the community on the need to counter trafficking in the DRC and gain support ahead of the official launch of ARRETE.
Awareness is a powerful tool for change in the DRC, where the public knows very little about the various forms of human trafficking, and in many situations considers it normal or commonplace for someone to experience sexual exploitation, forced marriage, forced begging, forced enrollment in armed groups, forced labor, or child trafficking. In a recent mapping of services for vulnerable groups, carried out by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) with funding from USAID, it emerged that 71% of reception center managers in Kinshasa, unaware of what human trafficking is, confuse it with child abuse. More concerningly, 82% of these reception center managers do not know how to contact the services dedicated to combating human trafficking. The service mapping results came from a report developed by ABA ROLI’s ARRETE C-TIP expert in collaboration with USAID and IOM in October 2022, Mapping and Evaluation of Service Providers for Victims of Human Trafficking in the DRC (French, Mapping et Evaluation des Prestataires de services de prise en charge des Victimes de la Traite des personnes en RDC).
