How to Conduct Direct Outreach

Direct outreach and victim identification are ongoing challenges in the anti-human trafficking movement. The rates of identification of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals are low in comparison to the estimates of the prevalence of human trafficking cited by the International Labor Organization, the International Organization for Migration and Polaris Project. Direct outreach essentially relies on trained outreach staff and volunteers to make appropriate and substantive contact with victims, and to encourage victims to self-report. However, there needs to be a system in place to respond to the needs of those victims when they decide to seek a way out.

As a victim decides to seek a way out, consider that individual’s safety. Controllers pose a constant threat to a victim’s safety, and effective safety planning can help increase a victim’s safety as well as the safety of any individual or agency assisting. To learn more about how to develop an effective safety plan, please refer to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center document “Safety Planning and Prevention.”