In light of national, cross-border, transboundary and regional hazards of various type in Southern Africa, a desk review was undertaken by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in order to enhance the understanding of disaster risk and spaces of vulnerability (i.e. exposure to hazards) in terms of natural disaster and/or crisis situations in Southern Africa, and map the current disaster risk governance structure and preparedness capacity in the region. Six countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region – namely, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe – were targeted. Based on existing hazards, vulnerability and resilience, the concept of spaces of vulnerability (i.e. areas with higher exposure to risk), the review identifies spaces of vulnerability in the region to include the following elements: 1. Location of national or transboundary hazards and hazard-prone areas, including but not limited to the Zambezi, Limpopo and Okavango river basins; the Indian Ocean coastline; the East African Rift Valley; dry lands; and areas experiencing particularly unpredictable weather patterns. 2. Areas with increased level of vulnerability, including but not limited to: a. Rural areas with high poverty levels; depending on rain-fed agriculture and subsistence farming; with inadequate housing and/or access to basic services such as water and sanitation; at distance to or absence to health-care facilities; b. Urban areas not properly planned and/or informal settlements; with high poverty levels, unemployment, income inequality and social exclusion; with inadequate housing and/or access to basic services such as water and sanitation and/or otherwise poor infrastructure; with high population density; with a diverse community living in discord with each other and/or facing social tension; c. Border areas with a high level of cross-border population movement, or border areas where communities face transboundary hazards; d. Specific vulnerabilities faced by population groups or individuals, including but not limited to migrants and particularly undocumented migrants and “people of concern”; people living with HIV/AIDS; people with special needs; people disadvantaged by or living in the margins of a community/society. 3. Areas with little or no disaster risk management capacity – including absence of comprehensive planning for prevention, preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation activities. As such, disaster risk reduction and resilience initiatives adapted to national, cross-border, transboundary and regional hazards; development challenges and vulnerabilities; and disaster risk management systems are required, mainstreaming relevant regional dynamics such as sustainable development, climate change, urbanization, and migration into disaster risk management frameworks and operational mechanisms.

Since its foundation, the ILO has contributed to state building through social reform, by promoting democratic participation, social dialogue and fundamental rights. In more recent years, it has also highlighted the role of socio-economic programmes and policies in peace building and the recovery of countries involved in conflicts, violent social unrest, natural disasters and other types of crises, such as abrupt financial and economic downturns. Post-conflict, fragile and disaster-affected countries are characterized by instability, insecurity, poverty and inequality. The lack of employment opportunities and livelihoods, unemployment and underemployment, inequalities and lack of participation can in turn be catalysts for conflict, crises and fragility-aggravated poverty, unemployment and informality, creating a vicious circle leading to even greater fragility. Also, state fragility and the related instability may create “spill-over effects” and thus contribute to the destabilization of neighbouring states and regions. Nevertheless, ILO experience to date demonstrates that the promotion of employment and decent work in situations of fragility plays a key role in pulling individuals and societies out of crisis, and setting them on a sustainable development path.

Commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking of children is considered by ILO as one of the worst forms of child labour which requires immediate and definitive action from governments. It is a violation of the fundamental human rights of the most vulnerable in our society, our children, and an outrage that must be condemned in the strongest manner, it must also galvanize us into action. ILO research in the Pacific has shown that these issues are present in our communities and a collective effort is required in the fight against this. The “Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking of Children in a Nutshell” is a resource designed to enhance the knowledge base on sexual exploitation and trafficking in the Pacific. It clarifies the worst forms of child labour concepts and relevant ILO and UN Conventions that deal with these issues and highlights the risk and vulnerability factors that we must guard against to protect our children.

Marriage under the age of 18 is widely considered a human rights violation, though it is legal with parental consent in many countries. It falls within the definition of genderbased violence.Married girls are at risk of intimate partner violence and exposure to sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Marriage often means the end of a girl’s education and limits her vocational opportunities. Ninety percent of early first births happen within the context of child marriage and complications during pregnancy and delivery are the second leading cause of death among 15- to 19-year-olds. Nine of the top 10 countries with the highest rates of child marriage are considered fragile states. Similarly, many countries particularly vulnerable to natural disasters have the highest child marriage prevalence. Fragility and conflict impact child-marriage decisions. However, the role they play is complex and not fully understood. The need to protect girls from rape, as well as the stigma of surviving rape; from pregnancy outside marriage; and from the influence of other communities are factors that lead to child marriage. Poverty, exacerbated in displacement, is a driver of early marriage as parents hope to secure a daughter’s future or to meet basic needs. Child marriage is both exacerbated by barriers to education and an impediment to school for the girls. Additionally, marriage isolates adolescent girls from friends and programs that would help them overcome the challenges of marriage.

The guide summarizes an assessment of War Child Canada’s three-pronged legal protection model was implemented with South Sudanese refugees in Northern Uganda and uses it to identify the most important lessons for ensuring legal protection mechanisms are in place at the onset of an emergency. It is meant to help build the evidence base on what may be a replicable model, or set of practices, for survivor-centered SGBV legal protection services in emergency settings; expand understanding of positive practices and lessons learned; and help humanitarian actors gain the competencies needed to uphold their SGBV responsibilities.

In 2016, there were an estimated 40.3 million victims of modern slavery in the world, more than were enslaved during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Since the adoption of the 2000 UN Trafficking Protocol, numerous efforts from inter-governmental agencies, governmental agencies, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), and domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have strived to combat the phenomena of human trafficking through legal-institutional means, direct interventions, and programs of support for those exploited. This anti-trafficking work has paid varying degrees of attention to the principles and methods of monitoring, evaluation, and impact assessment, but has often been subject to the end of project evaluations. Similar to findings of reviews of evaluations in the international development sector, evaluations of anti-trafficking programing have primarily focused on assessing the progress of project implementation and the achievement of outputs, rather than tracking the achievement of outcomes or impact. This is further complicated by the hidden nature of human trafficking and the trauma experienced by human-trafficking victims. As a consequence, despite some evidence of raised awareness and increased levels of funding, organizations are still struggling to demonstrate impact and discern what works to combat human trafficking. This article analyses the evaluations of counter-trafficking programing produced since the Protocol to draw conclusions regarding the lessons learned from these interventions and the methods used to monitor and evaluate human-trafficking programs. By highlighting gaps, this article provides a series of suggestions on how to better track progress and impact toward the elimination of modern slavery.

This report is developed in response to an official request submitted to the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) by the Main Department on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Department requested a feedback on the National Action Plan for fight against trafficking in human beings of the Republic of Azerbaijan 2014-2018 as well as support and suggestions for the development of the next 2019-2023 plan. The report is produced in the framework of the Prague Process Migration Observatory implemented through the “Prague Process: Dialogue, Analyses and Training in Action” (PP DATA) initiative, funded by the European Union and implemented by ICMPD in its capacity of Prague Process Secretariat. PP DATA aims at sustaining and further enhancing the cooperation established in the area of migration and asylum between the countries of the European Union, the Schengen Area, the Eastern Partnership, the Western Balkans, Central Asia, Russia and Turkey.

The years 2015-2016 saw an unprecedented increase in the numbers of people travelling by sea and overland along the migration route to the European Union (EU), with almost one and a half million people irregularly entering EU countries.This situation required frontline responders in these regions to be able to quickly identify and refer potential victims of trafficking in human beings (THB) among refugees, asylum applicants and migrants in an irregular situation. It also required the adoption of tailored protection and rehabilitation programmes for identified victims of trafficking among these people. This is particularly important for the protection of specific vulnerable groups, such as separated and unaccompanied children. The TRAM research assessment aims to contribute to the establishment of a solid knowledge base on this crucially important issue. It examines the incidence of trafficking in human beings and risk factors for THB in the context of the Balkan route and in destination countries. It also looks at the gaps, needs and challenges that exist in the identification, referral, protection and rehabilitation of victims of trafficking. The study found indications that trafficking and exploitation are a major cause of concern for migrants and refugees travelling along the Western Balkans route, yet the number of identified victims remains extremely low. The lack of statistical data is to a certain extent the result of a vicious circle, whereby if there is no evidence of trafficking cases among a certain group, the necessary resources are not mobilised to address THB and proactively identify cases, which in turn prevents the gathering of accurate statistics. The low number of identifications is also due to the lack of harmonisation and incorporation of anti-trafficking procedures into the first reception and asylum systems for new arrivals, leading to a disconnect between the two processes. The research also highlighted that in the context of the Balkan route, trafficking is often related to the migrant smuggling process, with exploitation occurring due to people being in debt to smugglers, and due to smugglers requesting increasing amounts of money for their services. The complexity of differentiating between the two distinct phenomena of smuggling of migrants and trafficking in human beings, and of understanding the points of convergence, contributes to making identification and referral procedures more difficult. From a migration policy perspective, the study found that increasingly restrictive border control policies and the lack of legal alternatives for onward movement play into the hands of unscrupulous smugglers, who use this opportunity to also perpetrate trafficking and other forms of exploitation, taking advantage of the vulnerable situation of migrants and refugees.

Around the world more than 50 million people, many of them women, are domestic workers. Of these, a significant number are migrants, including migrants who are in an irregular situation. The work they do is invaluable. Among a myriad other tasks, domestic workers clean, iron clothes, cook, garden, provide home health care, drive, and take care of children and older persons. This is necessary work, but work that often goes unnoticed, particularly when it is undertaken by irregular migrants who work unseen behind closed doors. In fact, labour legislation in several countries does not even recognize domestic work and often excludes domestic workers from access to rights and protections that are enjoyed by other categories of workers. Domestic workers often lack access to rights, to justice and to protection both as women and as migrants, creating an environment that often leads to serious human rights abuse. The situation of migrant domestic workers in an irregular situation is even more vulnerable. They are disproportionately subjected to human rights abuse, violations which often occur inside homes, where those responsible are able to operate with impunity and where victims are unseen and unprotected. The pattern of human rights abuses is similar all over the world. Migrant domestic workers in an irregular situation face exploitative working conditions and discrimination, they lack access to basic economic, social and cultural rights and are exposed to sexual andgender-based violence. If they live in their workplace, they can be forcibly confined, lack privacy, be deprived of food and sleep, and are often prohibited from contacting their families and friends. In some countries they are subject to invasive medical tests and can be fired if they become pregnant. Very often, domestic workers are not permitted to marry. Moreover, if they flee abuse, they may be detained for lacking documents and may be denied access to social or health services or legal remedies. At risk of xenophobia and violence in the community as well as in the workplace, many may be afraid to report their suffering to the police or other authorities for fear of deportation.

In 2019, the Regional Data Hub (RDH) for the East and Horn of Africa (EHoA) launched a multistage research project aimed at better understanding the experiences, decision-making, perceptions and expectations of young Ethiopians along the Eastern Route regarding their migration projects. The project aims to investigate the nexus between decision-making, migrant expectations and realities on the ground by interviewing migrants leaving the Horn towards the Arab Peninsula. Although a reasonable body of work examining migrants’ decision-making processes exists, most of this research was conducted outside of the EHoA region. A more nuanced understanding of the migrants’ decision to migrate will help inform strategy and programmatic planning for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and other humanitarian and development actors in the region.