The root causes of trafficking are the development issues that the U.S. government addresses every day, such as lack of educational or job opportunities, the absence of social welfare safety nets, gender, ethnicity sexual orientation/gender identity, and disability-related discrimination.

From a USAID perspective, through increased integration, whether in health, education, democracy, human rights and governance (DRG), agriculture, or food security, we can better address the root causes of trafficking and leverage our comparative advantage as a development agency, enabling broad sector programs to reinforce counter-trafficking activities, making them more sustainable and effective. C-TIP prevention, protection, and prosecution can and should connect to global health, education, economic growth, DRG, food security, and other sector programming. Increased integration of counter-trafficking activities into the Agency’s programs across sectors in the first objective outlined in the USAID C-TIP Policy.

We define C-TIP integration as: The intentional effort to embed human trafficking prevention and protection measures into programs across sectors to reduce trafficking, avoid unintended negative consequences, and improve broader outcomes, such as in health, agriculture, and education.

To make an effective case for integration, links need to be articulated between the various sectors and C-TIP. Sometimes this is straightforward, other times it’s more challenging. Data is invaluable to show the links between the other sector and human rights issues. Data needs to demonstrate that if human rights issues such as trafficking are addressed, then improved development gains in the other sector are likely to be achieved.