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Changes in Migration Patterns and Repatriation
from Report: How has the International Anti-Trafficking Response Adapted to COVID-19?
by International Social Justice Commission - The Salvation Army
As NGOs we don’t get any subsidy from our government. We purely have got to rely on external aid. And so unfortunately also it seems the focus for most of our donors, most of our sponsors, the focus has changed because they’re also having to respond to the shocks created by COVID-19 in their own respective countries” (Interview Participant, Malawi).
“We lost a huge donor. Our major donor was in aviation” (Interview Participant, Indonesia). The above excerpts suggest that antitrafficking NGOs are shifting not only to respond to trafficking issues but also providing COVID-19 support for vulnerable communities, which may decrease their risk to trafficking. In some locations, separate funds and resources are being allocated for a COVID-19 response that organisations can apply for.
In other locations, local funding is scarce, and many are having to rely on external aid which may not be readily available. As such, receiving additional resources can also depend on the relationships that an organisation has with their partners or stakeholders as well as how well equipped national or local governments may be.
Other Services
Interview participants further expressed evidence of intersectional impacts of COVID-19 and, in the long term, this could see a rise in people seeking specialised support and services. Some intersectional impacts included a rise in gender-based violence or domestic violence and an increase in mental health issues:
“Certainly, we are seeing an increase in gender-based violence, partly because of economic pressure. We are seeing some difficulties of female garment workers who move to Yangon which is like the commercial capital and they’ve had to go back to the place of origin without work” (Interview Participant, Myanmar).
“We had students who felt isolated, felt very lonely, who were looking for a bit more support than perhaps normally they’d be a bit more independent but were feeling very vulnerable and a bit lonely and isolated during that time” (Interview Participant, Thailand).
Although there was little evidence from the interviews to suggest that these impacts were being seen amongst survivors of trafficking, literature indicates that this may be on the rise especially for domestic workers who are confined in the private space and prone to physical and sexual violence (Council for Foreign Relations, 2020).
