The CRADLE – the Children Foundation

The CRADLE – the Children Foundation

Project Title

“The Tumaini Project for Child Victims of Trafficking”

Location of Project

Nairobi

Project Objective

1. Effective remedies for victims of human trafficking, including, legal support, access to justice and compensation.
2. Providing direct humanitarian assistance and reintegration support to victims.

Description of Grant Recipient

The CRADLE is a Kenyan NGO that has been working in the area of child protection since 1998. It is an organization founded by a group of lawyers dedicated to child and juvenile justice. The CRADLE operates a wide variety of programmes related to child protection, including raising awareness of children’s rights, the provision of legal aid to trafficked children, policy and legislative advocacy for legal frameworks relevant to child protection and research, monitoring and documentation. The CRADLE has worked previously with numerous governmental organizations, international organizations and other NGOs.

raising awareness, children’s rights, strengthen legal frameworks

Description of Project

There is a lack of a comprehensive response system for victims of trafficking in Kenya. In particular, child victims of human trafficking lack adequate access to redress and compensation through the justice system and an ability to enforce their rights. The grant provided to the CRADLE aims to support its on-going project on supporting child trafficking victims and raising awareness of the issue in Kenya.

Specifically, the CRADLE has utilized the grant to continue its work in providing direct support for trafficked children through various means including medical treatment, trauma counselling, support for reintegration and legal support. The comprehensive nature of the support the CRADLE will provide to these child victims of trafficking will address immediate needs, such as medical care and temporary shelter, as well as long-term needs such as trauma counselling and legal redress. This multi-layer support will help prevent child victims of trafficking in being re-trafficked. It will additionally help provide a solid foundation from which these child victims can begin to return to a normal life. Furthermore, the CRADLE will continue to advocate on behalf of these child victims in an attempt to work toward creating stronger legislative protection for child victims and increasing their ability to access justice.

Key achievements

Within this reporting period, the project has undertaken the following activities:

1. During the reporting period CRADLE provided counselling and legal advice for 12 child trafficking victims and their parents.
2. A consultant completed a law enforcement investigation and prosecution training guide on counter trafficking during the last reporting period. A total of 60 police, investigation, and immigration officers received training on communications skills, as well as investigative and interviewing techniques. The consultant is now taking feedback received during this training to make final changes to the guide, after which it is expected to be printed and distributed.
3. The project has successfully completed an audit of the current legal framework on existing policies and
4. legislation on victim support and has completed the development of the concept paper on a case for victim support with specific focus on victims of human trafficking. The project has also completed a draft policy on victim support.
5. The project continued to undertake an audit of the current trafficking in persons cases being handled by the CRADLE to establish cases that would be eligible as civil litigation cases for victim assistance. The project undertook research on case law from other jurisdictions that can shape CRADLE’s strategic focus on public interest litigation cases for victim assistance for victims of trafficking in persons. A few strategic litigation sessions were held with a pool of Pro Bono lawyers on the same.

Key challenges

There have not been any major obstacles in the implementation of the project. The biggest challenge has been in organizing a National Steering Committee meeting to discuss a draft Victim Support policy in lieu of achieving the Project’s third result of a strengthened policy framework on support for victims. The CRADLE is a member of the National Steering Committee, however as this is also a Government initiative, the National Steering Committee Meeting is convened and Chaired by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Services, which is a ministry that ceased to exist with the new government.

Source: UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking 2013 Annual