Thank you Kristin for highlighting VF's work.

This innovation did not come easy. As in every intervention, a careful study of the field that you work in is necessary. One must, at times, think like a perpetrator and ask questions such as (in the fight against human trafficking) "what route can I best take my victims through in a way that they will be invisible to law enforcers", "who can I enlist as my accomplices that are strategically positioned to let my trade prosper", "how can I hide myself in the process", etc. These are the questions we constantly have to ask because as we continue to innovate our interventions, so do traffickers, and they have all the means because they have the money.

Therefore VF found it necessary to involve all the actors at play, from shipping companies to law enforcement authorities. Orientation sessions and trainings are conducted to conscientize everyone and engage them in the work to end trafficking.

I think, the best allies that one can enlist in the cause are those strategically positioned to either help stop or help make the problem flourish. It is only imperative that you get to them first before the other side does.

It is also important to ensure that you have a wide distribution of allies, multi-sectoral networks are good approaches to mobilization because you have everyone involved (and this also helps the work become cost-efficient because you only capitalize on the inherent position, expertise and resources of the groups enlisted).

We are fortunate that both the government and private sector have taken a very strong stand against human trafficking, hence the partnership we have been able to develop.

Here is a short (6 min) film about ICORN. It gives some quick insights to our work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayb1px1tu04

Elisabeth

I'm very pleased to share another great example of this tactic, which includes a creative partnership with local shop owners! This tactic example is being used in neighborhoods in Cairo, coordinated by Harassmap (participating in this conversation):

In Cairo, Harassmap partners with local shop owners to create “safe zones” against sexual harassment.   Harassmap uses a visual mapping platform to gather information from citizens about sexual harassment incidents taking place in the city.  They use this information to determine the neighborhoods with the highest number of incidents.  Within these neighborhoods, Harassmap finds local shop owners to invite as partners in their “safe zone” initiative.  Harassmap volunteers then visit shop owners and have friendly chats with them on how intervention with sexual harassment incidents would help bring more people to their shops.  The interested shop owners agree to display a poster that says “Catch a harasser: Safe Zone” and intervene when they witness an incident of sexual harassment.

How they implemented this tactic:

Harassmap utilizes existing technologies:  the Ushahidi mapping platform and Frontline SMS for receiving and organizing SMS messages.  A woman harassed on a street in Cairo can send a text message with her location and the type of harassment to which she was subjected.  Alternatively, she could log on to the project’s website www.harassmap.org , and report the incident. This report then appears on an interactive online map that shows the number of incidents reported in each specific area.

Harassmap identifies the areas with the highest number of incidents reported and reaches out to people in those communities. They have chosen to focus on local shop owners because their business is impacted negatively from high level of harassment incidents.  With the help of these shop owners, Harassmap establishes what they referred to as “safe zones against sexual harassment”, whereby shop owners agree to display a poster that says “Catch a harasser: Safe Zone” and intervene when they witness an incident of sexual harassment.

To raise awareness about the project, the Harassmap team organizes promotional campaigns around Cairo with stickers, flyers and public events.  On July 15, 2012, they held an open-mic session to allow victims of sexual harassment to share their stories with an engaged audience.

Read more about this tactic on our website.

What other examples of creative partnership are out there? How have you leveraged those partnerships to create safe spaces for communities? How are you using new technologies to create safe spaces? Share your examples!

- Kristin Antin, New Tactics Online Community Builder

We "simply"(!) send teams of international volunteers to accompany people whose work leads them to face threats from their state.

This allows them to work more freely, to engage in work that would otherwse be suppressed or travel more widely. We don't tell them what to do as they simply request our presence when they feel they need it. Sometimes we may accompany someone 24 hours a day for periods of time. More often we spend time at their offices or go with them when they travel within the country.

We are very open with the authorities, meetign them regularly to tell them who we are accompanying and providing exact details of when we are going to do an accompaniment. We find this effective in preventing any "accidents" or misunderstandings.

A slightly unusual aspect of our work is that we rarely publicly criticise states or get involved in campaigns. We find this allows us to have access to areas that many other international NGOs find more difficult to enter.

Here's a short film

I'll do a separate post later about challenges.

Like I said in my other post, today I had the opportunity to join a lightning interception and rescue operation at one of the ports where our organization operates, together with our President Ma. Cecilia Oebanda and a team of our Social Workers, in coordination with the task force against trafficking operating in the area.

I would just like to share a challenge we faced today, and in many other times, that really stressed us out.

How do you keep someone safe if the person does not want to be kept safe, especially if the person is a child?

Today we intercepted about 15 potentially trafficked minors. 8 of them we brought to our shelter, while the rest, we had to discharge to their "relatives" who picked them up.

Of the group we were able to rescue, two were extremely difficult to extract and bring to our on-site facility because they did not want to come with us. And because we do not have police power, we of course cannot protect them. (Insert: this is why it is good to have a strong and wide array of allies and partners, because in the end, we were able to secure them because the port authority which has policing powers can legitimately take them into custody, and later endorse them to us)

You see, the minors had all of the signs of trafficking written all over what they have shared with us while we were just informally interviewing them. But they were in touch with a "relative" on the phone, who was to pick them up, and this person gave them instructions to never at any circumstance come with us. to cut the story short, three persons appeared and presented themselves as cousin, employer, and driver, but their stories didn't match up. My point is, even when the children were clearly vulnerable and were fully apprised of the dangers that can befall them in the situation, they refused to go. We stayed under the heat of the sun for what seemed like hours talking to the 3 persons whose stories didn't add up, and to the two kids who were already teary-eyed and who were begging us to just let them go.

Even when my heart was breaking from their pleas, and my rational-thinking was caving in to the veiled threats thrown my way, I just couldn't let them go with those three people because the "red flags" were blinding. 

I guess it is essential to continually revisit why you're creating safe spaces - that you're not doing it to save those who want to and those who need to, but more importantly those who do not know yet that they need to be saved. You just have to be creative in your ways, because they can be your toughest challenge.

I agree with you Ghiaad, indeed creating safe spaces goes beyond policy-making because the execution of the policy is where the bottleneck actually is. However, in the context with which I shared a perspective, I believe policy, especially a national piece of legislation is a highly potent tool for creating safe spaces. You see, for a sector whose realities have never been taken into public opinion and concern with as much favor and focus as necessary has allowed the continued perpetuation of human rights violations with impunity... For decades. This is modern-day slavery. Domestic workers for example, do not enjoy basic human rights such as the right to social protection (because as workers, there is no mechanism specifically accorded for them for this purpose even when there are millions of them in this sector). Because of this, most of them incur debts to support medical ande educational needs, debts that they are not even able to pay within their lifetime, which again brings them to another form of slavery - debt bondage. They do not enjoy decent, safe and humane working conditions because no standards have been set. Domestic workers continue to languish in dangerous work because they are not given decent sleeping quarters, right nutrition, and humane working hours. Many of them sleep on floors or are cramped together in a tiny unventilated room, many take only a meal a day and at times, these meals are not even safe because they are leftovers, and most of them work from 4am to 1am. They are not paid a decent wage. Many of them are paid about 50 dollars a month, sometimes, even far less, in a highly urbanized city where the cost of living is about 5-10 dollars a day. Most of the time, they are not even paid their wages. They are not given access to education. Being a domestic worker in the Philippines is almost always a life sentence for many. Somehow, they are not able to finish even basic education because of the working conditions, and unbelievably low wages, among others. Worse, because domestic work is done inside the household, what happens inside is kept from the public eye. As such, abuses - psycho-emotional, physical, and even sexual, continue to occur with impunity. Of course we have basic laws against abusive conduct, but the uniqueness of the work situation where the abuse happens merits a specific policy, which has been absent for ages. Therefore, a strong platform that effectively protects and advances all these basic human rights and more is quite necessary in order to specifically mandate the government from top to bottom to create machineries to specifically address this situation and allocate funds therefor. This platform benchmarks conditions of work, standardizes wages, provides mandate for social protection, and best of all, a structure where the concerns of an unseen sector can be addressed pro-actively through a local government registration system. Ay deviation from this policy will be at the pain of penalties and punishment.  I agree that the policy will have to be effectively implemented in order for it to achieve its purpose of creating the safe space for work, but I also think that the policies such as those that sets benchmarks for programmatic service delivery by government, equalizes relations between parties, standardizes conditions and atmospheres especially those in known invisible and dangerous situations, and enumerates obligations of duty bearers, among others - ensures a safe space. I think Policy formulation is a huge part of the equation of creating safe spaces. Because at the end of the day, the critical questions that almost always remain unanswered and therefore hampers the process of creating the spaces, are: where do you and how do you access the rights that are at the center of the purpose of creating the safe space, and who do you access it from. Hence a piece of legislation that specifically answers and addresses these questions together with its underlying issues such as resources, structures, and mechanisms for rights-claiming is necessary. An enabling law that comprehensively obligates duty-bearers in a given social concern will establish a safe space for rights-holders.