From 2018-2019, the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) worked to enhance the capacity of police, prosecutors, and judges to effectively investigate, prosecute, and adjudicate trafficking in persons (TIP) related crimes. ABA ROLI worked with the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) to conduct a series of regional roundtables in high prevalence TIP areas for civil society, local government, and pro bono/legal aid lawyers with the goal of strengthening collaboration between civil society and justice sector actors and improving victim identification and protection. To harmonize understanding among diverse stakeholders on what constitutes TIP in the Sri Lankan context and the statutory protections TIP victims are entitled to, ABA ROLI worked with partners to develop a TIP Compendium on Legal Frameworks Relevant to TIP in Sri Lanka that were widely distributed. ABA ROLI is working closely with the Attorney General’s Department (AGD) and the Judicial Training Institute to jointly design a series of training sessions for justice sector actors and promote initiatives aimed at systematizing coordinated, victim-centric and criminal justice system responses to TIP.
During 2018, ABA ROLI worked to enhance the capacity of law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges to effectively prosecute TIP-related crimes. Additionally, we worked with BASL to conduct a series of regional roundtables in areas with high rates of trafficking in persons for civil society, local government, and pro bono and legal aid lawyers, with the goal of strengthening collaboration between civil society and justice-sector actors and improving victim identification and protection.
In 2019, ABA ROLI worked closely with the AGD to develop a Prosecutor’s Handbook on TIP, an unprecedented resource for the AGD that contains prosecution tools to be taken up by State Prosecutors across the various stages of the TIP criminal justice process. ABA ROLI worked with the National Judicial Training Institute to support High Court judges on improving adjudication of TIP cases. During phase II of our program, ABA ROLI worked with the Criminal Investigation Department to train police on best practices in investigating TIP cases. Finally, ABA ROLI partnered with the AGD to train and support legal aid lawyers to provide much needed support to TIP victims—to ensure their safety, help them navigate the criminal justice system, and to assist them in pursuing legal remedies and interim relief measures.