Helen Bamber Foundation – Counter-Trafficking Project
London, UK | 2010 – 2018
Give Way to Freedom supports the Helen Bamber Foundation’s Counter-Trafficking Project, serving individuals who have experienced trafficking and are vulnerable to re-victimization, exploitation, and abuse. These individuals require safeguarding, intensive contact, and additional support, as they are in most cases either in the early stages of escaping a trafficking situation or are at risk of being re-trafficked by networks of their original abusers and/or other perpetrators. The project is coordinated by a dedicated Counter-Trafficking Lead and includes a specialist, integrated model of care and support addressing the specific needs of victims of trafficking.
Our Work with the Helen Bamber Foundation
The Helen Bamber Foundation is the only organization in the UK dedicated to providing holistic care and support to victims of trafficking and modern slavery alongside victims of torture and other forms of human cruelty. The Counter Trafficking Project supports adult victims of trafficking from all over the world.
Approximately 75% of the clients supported by the project are female and 25% are male. Currently, HBF is working with many women from Albania, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Uganda and men from Albania, China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Vietnam. Almost half of the clients who are supported by the Project are between 17 – 26 years of age but they work with clients of any age and have victims of trafficking aged 17 to 65.
Our work with HBF includes:
Our funding for 2016 through 2018 enabled The Helen Bamber Foundation to continue to offer a full range of service options to survivors, such as:
- Safeguarding and intensive contact to help victims stabilize, avoid re-victimization and overcome crisis situations including housing and funding crisis and crisis relating to their legal status in the UK
- Psychological and psychiatric care to address needs arising from psychological trauma of trafficking
- Physical rehabilitation therapies and activities and specialist medical advisory clinic to address needs arising from the physical trauma of trafficking
- Clinical assessment and medico-legal documentation of the physical and psychological impact of to address needs arising from legal challenges
- Employability Skills and Creative Arts Program to address isolation and lack of education amongst victims of trafficking.
- Support and assistance for victims of human trafficking to remain safe, avoid further harm, exploitation, abuse, and re-trafficking
- Help for victims of human trafficking through the three stages of recovery from trauma: stabilization, trauma-focused therapy, and integration and to sustain that recovery for the long term.
- Improving the understanding and approach of other organizations working with victims of human trafficking
From May 2014 — December 2015:
- HBF served 98 suspected/actual human trafficking survivors, including 44 new clients
- Approximate number of case management/services hours utilized for suspected and actual human trafficking survivors: 1920
- Clients at HBF suffered from human trafficking for sexual exploitation, labor, and/or both.
- Clients who suffered trafficking for sexual exploitation including forced prostitution are predominantly women and girls however, there is a small but significant number of men who HBF worked with who have suffered sexual exploitation including some who were used by pedophile networks.
- Clients who have suffered trafficking for labor exploitation include clients trafficked for domestic servitude and forced labor in cannabis farming, street hawking, construction work, catering, and DVD production
