It was a privilege for Hope for Justice to be in Vienna this week at the 26th OSCE Alliance against Trafficking in Persons Conference. This year’s theme was ‘The Rise of Forced Criminality: Addressing a Security Blind Spot.’
The conference made clear that trafficking for criminal exploitation is systemic, it is one of the fastest growing types of human trafficking, and it is deliberately structured to exploit blind spots in legislation, policy, systems and practice.
Another important message was that protecting victims and protecting security are not competing objectives but are mutually reinforcing. When trafficked people are misidentified as criminals, traffickers remain invisible, organised crime remains profitable, and harm multiplies.
The 26th OSCE Alliance against Trafficking in Persons Conference. Photo credit: OSCE
At the conference, we made a verbal statement known as an intervention, which was drafted alongside members of our Survivor Leadership Council. This focused on the importance of ethical survivor inclusion, and bridging criminal justice and protection by building trust between communities, survivors, civil society, protection, and justice agencies. We also called for non-punishment to move from principle into practice, so that victims are identified before arrest and have access to quality legally aided representation.
Jane Lasonder, Chair of the International Survivors of Trafficking Advisory Council (ISTAC) and Chair of Hope for Justice’s Survivor Leadership Council, also contributed to discussions alongside survivor leaders and spoke in the closing session alongside Dr Kari Johnstone, OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Human Trafficking, on collective work to be done in the future.
The 26th OSCE Alliance against Trafficking in Persons Conference. Photo credit: OSCE
Some of our key takeaways from the conference include:
- The meaningful and ethical inclusion of survivors is critical to developing effective responses – every country should have a Survivor Leadership Council.
- Forced criminality must be consistently recognised as human trafficking, not treated solely through the lens of fraud, cybercrime or drugs frameworks but equally we must understand this type of human trafficking as part of the ecosystem of organized crime and work across sectors rather than in silos.
- Early, systematic screening is critical to effective identification – identification delayed is, in practice, identification and protection denied. To do so we must look beyond the crime committed to the vulnerable child, young person or adult and the context behind the crime and dispel the myth of the ideal or perfect victim.
- The effective and consistent application of the non‑punishment principle in law, policy and practice is not optional but a critical human rights safeguard. It must operate at every stage: prearrest, arrest, charging, trial, post‑conviction including the ability to expunge records.
- Disrupting the business model requires shifting focus up the chain: following money flows, utilising technology, strengthening cross‑border cooperation, and targeting those who control, threaten, profit and replace exploited people with ease.
The 26th OSCE Alliance against Trafficking in Persons Conference. Photo credit: OSCE
Hope for Justice’s intervention
Hope for Justice’s intervention at the Alliance Conference, drafted with our Survivor Leadership Council, focused on moving from blind spots to bridges. We called for:
- Building bridges with survivors by ensuring ethical and meaningful inclusion in policy and practice.
- Bridging criminal justice and protection including mandatory trauma informed training, challenging the myth of the perfect victim, building effective multi-agency responses and ensuring that survivors have access to an independent advocate.
- Bridging non-punishment from principle into practice.
You can download and read our full intervention here.
Lived experience and survivor leadership
Throughout the conference the most powerful and instructive interventions came from survivors whose insights illuminated both personal harm and structural failure.
Sosa Henkoma, a member of ODHIR/OSCE International Survivors of Trafficking Advisory Council (ISTAC), described moving through every system, including social care, criminal justice, and immigration — and leaving each one labelled, a person or risk to be managed or sanctioned, but never recognised as a victim. His account exposed a core misconception: that criminality reflects a series of individual choices, rather than what happens when people are in situations of vulnerability, are deceived, threatened, isolated and controlled over time and have no choice. He reminded us that trafficking for criminal exploitation lives in the grey — and systems are built in black and white, to look for the “ideal or perfect victim” and therefore structurally designed to miss victims of trafficking for the purposes of criminal exploitation.
Jane Lasonder, Chair of ISTAC and Hope for Justice’s Survivor Leadership Council, sharpened this challenge further, stating that when we punish victims, “we are not solving the crime, we are punishing the evidence.” Traffickers rely on this distortion: when exploited people absorb the risk, are not identified and prosecuted, the business model of organized crime survives untouched.
The 26th OSCE Alliance against Trafficking in Persons Conference. Photo credit: OSCE
Crucially, Jane warned against building policy, law and systems about survivors without building them with survivors. Lived experience holds critical expertise for understanding how traffickers operate, the recruitment tactics of exploiters as well as the long-term impact of harm — including survivors having criminal records, insecurity, and stigma which can result in re‑victimisation long after the person has left their exploitation.
Their interventions reinforced a central truth: meaningful and ethical survivor inclusion is not just good practice — it is a condition of effectiveness and building systems which are truly trauma informed, survivor centred, child friendly and human rights based. Without survivor leadership, we design responses that misdiagnose exploitation, reinforce silos, and reproduce harm.
The call to action was unmistakable: move beyond black and white thinking, operationalise non‑punishment in law and practice, and embed survivor expertise meaningfully in prevention, identification, protection and justice.
As Sosa urged us all: don’t just study the change; don’t just write reports about the change — become the change.”
