Safeguarding, Protection and Legal Support for Victims of Child Trafficking in Thailand

Child victims of trafficking in Thailand experience different challenges that range from safeguarding to protection issues, and accessing legal support. In response to this, Save the Children Thailand partnered with key stakeholders and implemented three interlinked projects that sought to improve the access to safeguarding practices (EASE Phase II), improve protection and friendly legal support to children victims of trafficking (PROMPT), and ensure that there’s standardized protection and care in government shelters for survivors of trafficking (SPACE). They did this by building the capacity of the relevant duty-bearers in shelters on child protection and gender-sensitive approaches through training.

Levante collaborated with Save the Children to conduct a final evaluation of the EASE Phase II and SPACE projects and the progress assessment of the PROMPT project. The evaluation objectives were to identify and document the good practices and lessons learned from both EASE Phase II and SPACE and assess the conduct for improvement of PROMPT. The evaluation also assessed the extent of the impact of the three projects on the lives of the targeted children including the quality of services provided, policy challenges and implementation standards as well as the intervention gaps and opportunities to provide recommendations and strategies for future programming.

The team deployed child and gender-sensitive semi-structured tools including key informant interviews and focus group discussions to collect qualitative data that was then used to triangulate data from different sources, to validate and add depth to findings. Among the key stakeholders that Levante interviewed in the evaluations were key government personnel in the legal sector, civil society organizations, the association of social workers, implementing partners, Save the Children staff, shelter staff, and child and adult trafficking survivors.

At the end of the evaluation, Levante produced a report that used the OECD-DAC criteria to highlight the relevance, effectiveness, impact, sustainability, and gender sensitivity of the project interventions in response to the needs of child survivors of trafficking and shelter staff in Thailand. Levante also used a recommendation matrix to provide Save the Children with recommendations on aspects of the project to follow-up on, strengthen or initiate divided by shelter-level, policy/advocacy level and organizational level for improved outcomes for survivors of human trafficking in shelters. The report was produced in English and Thai for ease of accessibility to an even wider audience.