An Alternative Anti-Trafficking Action Plan: A Proposed Model Based on a Labor Approach to Trafficking, TraffLab Research Group Policy Paper, Tel Aviv University

TraffLab’s Alternative Anti-Trafficking Action Plan (the “Alternative Plan”) provides a<br>labor-based alternative approach to the new Israeli national plan to address human trafficking<br>2019-2024, published by the Ministry of Justice in January 2019. The Alternative Plan outlines<br>the directions we believe need to be taken in order to address the structural problems that<br>underlie serious phenomena that we are witnessing in the Israeli labor market today, and that<br>we do not believe the accepted approach to combating human trafficking addresses. The<br>Alternative Plan as a whole reflects a vision, an ambitious action plan for a possible future,<br>which on the one hand is firmly rooted in the legal situation in Israel, and on the other seeks<br>to offer new thinking in the field to locate and identify human trafficking engines. The program<br>has three parts: prevention, enforcement, and partnership, all of which reflect the need to<br>address the root causes of severe forms of labor market exploitation. Each section contains a<br>number of short chapters which focus on different aspects of the immigration regime and<br>labor market regulation in Israel, that create structural vulnerability to human trafficking, and<br>offers concrete policy proposals for change. Along with more familiar elements for<br>practitioners in the field -such as aspects of tied visas, debt and recruitment fees, and bilateral<br>agreements - the Alternative Plan includes a discussion of many other aspects including,<br>among others, discussions on how employment structures - private bureaus, manpower<br>agencies, and construction agencies – and exclusion from protective legislation and lack of<br>workers’ rights enforcement create vulnerability to exploitation and human trafficking, as well<br>on the need for a comprehensive reform of the victim identification system in Israel. The<br>program also addresses the potential role of labor unions in representing and supporting<br>workers in sectors prone to trafficking, and the responsibilities of corporations for human<br>trafficking down their supply chains.<br><br>The Alternative Plan is a collaboration by TraffLab researchers: Post-Doctoral Fellows<br>Yahel Kurlander and Assaf S. Bondy, Doctoral Fellow Hanny Ben-Israel, Research Fellows<br>Tamar Barkay, Avinoam Cohen, Yuval Livnat and Tamar Megiddo, Visiting Researchers Maayan<br>Niezna and Shahar Shoham, and PI Hila Shamir. Editors: Hila Shamir and Maayan Niezna.<br>The Alternative Plan is currently available in Hebrew. An English version is planned to be released by July of 2021.<br>