Evaluation of disaster relief efforts to prevent human trafficking in Vietnam

In 2021, Freedom in Disasters (FiD) partnered with the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation to conduct an evaluation of the effectiveness of its disaster relief program following the 2020 storm and floods in the Tha Thien-Hue province in Vietnam, focusing on human trafficking prevention.

The Blue Dragon Children's Foundation supported the disaster-affected area with almost 200,000 US$, focusing on mitigating economic impacts which would otherwise push families further into poverty and drive child or adult trafficking in the region. Partnering with FiD, an evaluation was conducted to better understand how this disaster relief effort contributed to preventing child migration and therefore reduced the overall human trafficking risk.

This evaluation concludes that having a strong focus on preventing human trafficking, particularly child trafficking, and ensuring long term resilience against vulnerability to trafficking, has been a successful way to provide disaster relief assistance. The focus on trafficking prevention has resulted in the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation and our partners targeted assistance to those families who demonstrate vulnerability to human trafficking and child labor. These included families with school aged children, living in poverty, with other vulnerabilities such as single parent families, or households with members who have disabilities or chronic health problems. This focused effort resulted in supporting the wellbeing and education of children, as we know that keeping children in school is one of the most effective means of preventing child trafficking and exploitation. The co-funding of this initiative contributed to improving the international body of knowledge to better understand how to approach disaster relief and counter human trafficking programming.

‘We are proud to partner with the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation and work collaboratively to better understand how disaster relief efforts can be targeted to prevent human trafficking. We need to strive to an improved understanding regarding disaster relief and human trafficking program optimization. Initiatives like this shine a light on the possibilities that collaborations of the disaster relief and counter human trafficking sector can bare. We hope that this example encourages other organizations to conduct similar evaluation efforts and/or reach out to us so that we can collaboratively enhance our shared understanding of counter human trafficking programming in disaster settings. Thanks to our colleagues at the Blue Dragon foundation for being a pioneer in this area and going on this journey with us.' Matt Dorfstaetter (Chair and Co-Founder, Freedom in Disasters).