Business opportunities
June 2017
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Australia's Ongoing Commitment to Combatting Human Trafficking in ASEAN [PDF 704 KB]
Human trafficking and related forms of exploitation have a detrimental impact on sustainable development and regional security.
Australia's current investment, the Australia-Asia Program to Combat Trafficking in Persons (AAPTIP), is set to conclude in 2018.
Australia's future trafficking investment
Australia is committed to continuing partnerships with ASEAN Member States to combat human trafficking. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is in the early stages of designing a new trafficking investment.
The new investment will be the fourth iteration of anti-trafficking work in the region. It will build on the success of AAPTIP, the Asia Regional Trafficking in Persons Project (ARTIP) and the Asia Regional Cooperation to Prevent People Trafficking (ARCPPT).
Australia's development assistance to combat human trafficking in ASEAN
Since 2003, Australia's regional development program has assisted ASEAN's investigators, prosecutors, judges and court administrators to strengthen criminal justice responses to human trafficking in South East Asia.
In that time, our programs have:
- supported more than 10,000 investigators, prosecutors, judges and court officials through training and capacity building;
- helped establish and support specialist units to investigate and prosecute trafficking throughout the region;
- facilitated cross-border cooperation in trafficking investigations and assisting trafficking victims involved in trials; and
- supported ASEAN's policy leadership, including by supporting development of the ASEAN Convention on Trafficking In Persons, Especially Women and Children.
What next?
The design process will build on the successes of Australia's long-standing human trafficking work in the criminal justice sector. It will consider ways to broaden and deepen Australia's assistance; and how the efforts of ASEAN Member States can best be supported to implement obligations under the new ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (ACTIP).
Any new investment will align with Australia's International Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking and Slavery, announced by Foreign Minister Bishop in 2016.
DFAT is consulting government, civil society and the private sector. Future assistance will complement other Government initiatives such as the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime.
Design consultations are expected to be completed in 2017. Any approach to market will follow the completion of a new design.
This project is managed out of the ASEAN Mission in the Australian Embassy, Bangkok.
Contact: ASEAN.Mekong.Program@dfat.gov.au