Trafficking in Persons

World Vision works in partnership with local hospitals, schools, community leaders, faith communities, and law enforcement agencies to ensure that child protection is a priority. We encourage community stakeholders to raise awareness of and advocate for children’s protection, to speak out against harmful attitudes and practices, and to identify and respond to abuse and exploitation when they encounter it. 

World Vision focuses on the most vulnerable — children separated from family care, who live or work on the street, who are affected by disaster or conflict, or who are not in school — and empowers them with a targeted education on what trafficking is and the recruitment techniques that traffickers use. By equipping vulnerable children with access to quality education and supporting families to meet children’s immediate needs, such as food and housing, we are contributing significantly toward preventing child exploitation and trafficking. 

Children who have been abused or exploited need time and care to recover. World Vision works to reunite children with their families and communities when possible and appropriate. We start by helping children heal through medical, legal, and psychosocial services, and by equipping them with life skills, livelihood training, and education opportunities. This often includes providing a safe place for children, alongside counseling and recovery activities. Additionally, World Vision supports children in understanding and navigating the criminal prosecution process in victim-centered, child-friendly ways, helping ensure children are protected from further trauma in their interactions with the justice system. 

Mongolia: Child Protection Compact project
World Vision is partnering with the government of Mongolia and the U.S. Department of State to implement the Mongolia Child Protection Compact project, which aims to strengthen Mongolia’s efforts to prosecute and convict child traffickers with a victim-centered approach, provide comprehensive trauma-informed care for child VOTs, and prevent child trafficking in all its forms. The project addresses all four of the U.S. Department of State’s programming objectives — interagency coordination and collaboration, prosecution, protection, and prevention. The project’s goal is to increase the capacity and collaboration of the government, civil society, and private sector stakeholders to effectively prosecute and convict child traffickers with a victim-centered approach, to provide comprehensive trauma-informed care for child VOTs, and to prevent child trafficking in all its forms. The project aims to build the capacity of national and local government, civil society, and private sector stakeholders engaged in counter-trafficking and child protection activities.

Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Montenegro: Safe Haven Project
The Safe Haven Project is working in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Montenegro, to develop a multi-level and multi-country, institutional strengthening approach to build systemic, long-term practices and mechanisms for funding adequate shelter solutions and comprehensive services for Victims of Trafficking in the Western Balkans. World Vision Bosnia and Herzegovina is leading a regional hub of partners to learn from and build the capacity of shelter providers in advocacy to increase sustainable funding for shelter services. The project promotes survivor-informed, data-driven solutions and partnering to multiply and sustain impact.