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Position title | SBP Counter Trafficking in Crisis Specialist Deployment | |
Position grade | P3 equivalent | |
Duty Station | Kabul, Afghanistan(50% remote support) | |
Reports directly to |
Reports directly to the IOM Senior Programme Coordinator. The specialist will be hosted by IOM and will report to the Senior Programme Coordinator for administrative reporting. The specialist will also report to the Protection Cluster Co-Coordinators for functional reporting and day to day work. The specialist will be fully dedicated to inter-agency counter-trafficking coordination in support of the Protection Cluster. The specialist will report indirectly to the Global Protection Cluster Task Team on Anti-Trafficking focal points who will provide strategic direction and oversight of the deployment in the various GPC operations. |
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Duration | 6 months – timeframe to be adjusted as per start-date. Possible 6 months extension depending on funding. | |
II. Background | ||
Established in 1951, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is leading inter-governmental organization providing services to governments and migrants in the field of migration. With 173 member states and offices in more than 100 countries, IOM is dedicated to promoting humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all. IOM works in partnership with governments, the United Nations, international and non-governmental organizations, the private sector and development partners on all aspects of counter-trafficking responses – prevention, protection, and prosecution. Since the mid-1990s, IOM and its partners have provided protection and assistance to close to 100,000 men, women and children, who were trafficked for sexual and labour exploitation, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude, or for organ removal. Agriculture, fishing, domestic work and hospitality, commercial sexual exploitation, pornography, begging, construction and manufacturing are some of the sectors in which victims were exploited. IOM encourages the entire international community to engage in the fight against trafficking. It does so by participating in, and le, a number of regional and international multilateral processes, including the Global Protection Cluster Task Team on Anti-Trafficking in Humanitarian Action. The Global Protection Cluster Task Team on Anti-Trafficking in Humanitarian Action has been co-led by Heartland Alliance International (HAI), IOM and UNHCR since its inception in 2017 and co-led by UNHCR and IOM exclusively since October 2020. The aim of the TT is to ensure that the risk of trafficking is mitigated and addressed from the earliest stages of humanitarian responses and that Protection Clusters take the lead on coordinating the response to trafficking to ensure crisis affected persons who become victims of trafficking are able to receive protection and assistance. In November 2020, the Task Team published an Introductory Guide to Anti-Trafficking Action in Internal Displacement Contexts which will support Protection Clusters in implementing anti-trafficking responses. The Global Protection Cluster (GPC) is a network of NGOs, international organizations and United Nations (UN) agencies engaged in protection work in humanitarian crises including armed conflict, climate change related and natural disaster. he GPC is governed by a multi-stakeholder Strategic Advisory Group (SAG) and serviced by a multi-partner Operations Cell supported by an Information and Analysis Working Group, a Donor and Member States Liaison Platform, and thematic Task Teams. In addition, the GPC collaborates with the broader IASC system, the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), various human rights treaty bodies and key development and peace actors, as well as international financial institutions and the private sector. The GPC covers 32 operations including 25 field clusters/sectors and 7 working groups (15 in Africa, 4 in Asia, 1 in Europe, 5 in MENA, and 7 in the Americas), and supports them in their responsibility to coordinate an effective protection response. This year, in the face of COVID-19, the GPC and national protection clusters have worked to advocate for the rights of around 200 million people and provided specialized protection services and assistance to over 100 million people in its field operations. IOM has been present in Afghanistan since 1992, and works in close partnership with national and local government institutions, non-governmental agencies, community organizations and the donor community to address pressing and complex challenges in migration management, to respond to the needs created by humanitarian emergencies in the country and to ensure improved living conditions for vulnerable communities. IOM currently implements a range of humanitarian assistance, community stabilization, development, and migration management initiatives in Afghanistan, in cooperation with government and humanitarian partners as well as local communities. IOM has been active in the area of Counter-Trafficking in Afghanistan since 2001. Since 2016 IOM Afghanistan has hosted a multi-donor counter-trafficking programme through which they have, among other things: built the capacity of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan; supported the establishment of the National Trafficking in Persons High Commission; finalized the National Referral Mechanism; and supported regional cooperation on trafficking issues through assistance finalizing MoUs and agreements. The Afghanistan Protection Cluster (PC) is the main forum for the coordination of protection activities and is intended to facilitate a more predictable, accountable and effective approach to protection challenges and response in the country. The Protection Cluster is led by UNHCR and Co-led by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). The Protection Cluster in Afghanistan includes the following Areas of Responsibility: Child Protection in Emergency (CPiE) led by UNICEF, Gender-Based Violence (GBV) led by UNFPA, Mine Action (MA) AoR led by UNMAS, as well as a Housing, Land and Property (HLP) Task Force led by NRC. In 2021, it is foreseen that around 70 partners will deliver protection assistance and services to four million individuals (out of the identified 12.8 million people in need) in 34 provinces. The aim of the multi-year protection strategy is to ensure the immediate needs of affected people are addressed and to analyse and support in addressing the root causes of medium- to long-term protection needs and vulnerabilities. In parallel to tackling structural issues affecting the physical and mental wellbeing of vulnerable people, the strategy of the Protection Cluster focuses on building protection resilience by creating stronger synergies and opportunities for collaboration with development partners so that their response reduces underlying vulnerabilities. The Protection response will be guided by the HCT Protection Strategy (endorsed by the HCT in December 2020). The Protection Cluster plays an active role in all coordination fora in Afghanistan notably the ICCT, and in various Working Groups (MHPSS, PSEA, AAP, GiHA). Diverse forms of exploitation related to human trafficking exist in Afghanistan. Men, women, and children (including specific targeting of returnees) are exploited in forced or bonded labor for carpet making and brick factories, domestic servitude, bacha bazzi, and salt mining; sexual exploitation, forced begging, and forced marriage; and transnational drug smuggling. Internal trafficking is more prevalent than transnational trafficking. The major corridors for Afghans to be trafficked out of the country, often linked to forced marriages or through intermediaries with whom victims have made arrangements, are the routes through Iran to Turkey, Greece and Europe; through Pakistan to India; and beyond, including to the Gulf States. The Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GoIRA) revised the country's law to combat human trafficking in 2017 by broadening the definition of trafficking and strengthening the protection rights of victims in line with the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. The GoIRA's response to trafficking is governed by the High Commission for Combating Crimes of Abduction and Human Trafficking/Smuggling (the Trafficking in Persons or TiP Commission). It has a national Technical Committee and a Secretariat in Kabul, and Provincial Commissions. On the civil society side, a national NGO forum is nominally in place bringing together more than 20 NNGOs that are active in the counter-trafficking space. Afghanistan dropped to Tier 3 in the United States TIP report of 2020. The foundations of a CTIP infrastructure are in place in Afghanistan but require a sustained and collective effort to entrench and function. The GoIRA has limited resources to effectively coordinate the implementation of the 2017 TiP Law and related recently developed mechanisms and tools meant to facilitate a coordinated response to TiP, including the National Referral Mechanism, which was finalised and endorsed by the new Minister of Justice in November 2020, the national TIP database which has so far been piloted in 9 provinces, and the National Action Plan which is set to be endorsed in January 2021. The provincial commissions remain very weak in most provinces. Afghanistan’s protracted and escalating conflict leaves the GoIRA stretched beyond its capacity as it is pressed to provide security and basic services to its population. With compromised and weak institutions, it also encounters major challenges in ensuring criminal justice institutions function efficiently. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought additional pressures including significant economic down-turn, creating the conditions for increased vulnerabilities among already vulnerable groups – in particular people on the move: returnees and internally displaced people - that may be preyed upon by traffickers. 2020 saw the largest cross-border return flow on record, mainly from Iran, with more than 860,000 people having crossed the border back into Afghanistan in 2020. Irregular out-flows also continue, driven primarily by lack of livelihoods opportunities and by conflict inside Afghanistan, but are much more difficult to track and quantify. Some 4.8 million Afghans are living in protracted internal displacement inside the country, around 8% of whom are living in extremely basic conditions in informal settlements on Afghanistan’s urban fringes. With the populations targeted by the Humanitarian Response Plan, the cluster seeks to strengthen identification and referral of victims of trafficking (through strengthened screening at key entry points, and ongoing training and support for Government and civil society stakeholders including on the use of the National Referral Mechanism and TIP database); to improve the knowledge of at-risk communities on the dangers of human trafficking (through awareness raising and community engagement with affected and at-risk communities); and to provide direct assistance and protection to victims of human trafficking and people identified to be at very high risk of being trafficked, in particular children. In all of these areas there are significant gaps, and coordination among stakeholders remains weak. The successful candidate will undertake all necessary tasks to support the Protection Cluster in Kabul, Afghanistan to enhance the ability across the humanitarian and protection community to deliver activities designed to prevent trafficking; provide protection and assistance for victims of trafficking; and to improve coordination and partnership-building among counter-trafficking stakeholders in Afghanistan. She/he will work closely with the Protection Cluster Coordinator and Co-Coordinator on day-to-day work. The successful candidate will be hosted by and based in IOM. She/he will also liaise biweekly with the Global Protection Cluster Task Team on Anti-Trafficking focal point in order to track challenges and developing practices. |
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III. Responsibilities and Accountabilities | ||
The successful candidate will be responsible for the following tasks. Required tasks In close coordination with the Protection Cluster Coordinator and Co-Coordinator, IM officer, AoR Coordinators, country-level Protection Cluster members, hosting IOM mission, national NGO forum (ANCTIP), and other relevant humanitarian, development and peace actors:
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IV. Required Qualifications and Experience | ||
Education |
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Experience |
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V. Languages | ||
Required | Advantageous | |
Fluency in written and spoken English is required. |
Knowledge of Dari and/or Pashto is considered an asset. |
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VI. Competencies | ||
The incumbent is expected to demonstrate the following values and competencies: Values:
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Notes | ||
The appointment is subject to funding confirmation. Appointment will be subject to certification that the candidate is medically fit for appointment, accreditation, any residency or visa requirements, and security clearances. |
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