The Scottish Anti-Trafficking & Exploitation Centre is the only specialist legal project in Scotland that provides direct legal advice and representation to child and adult survivors of trafficking and exploitation in Scotland regardless of nationality, gender, type of exploitation and geographical location.
We use our expertise to fight against trafficking and exploitation, at both the national and international level, through our work with victim survivors of trafficking and exploitation as well as policy, training and research.
Legal Advice
We provide specialist legal advice and representation on all civil legal matters relating to an individual’s experience of trafficking and/or exploitation, including:
- Identification as a victim of trafficking and access to victim rights
- International protection (including asylum and human rights claims)
- Compensation (including criminal injuries compensation)
- Employment law
- Criminal justice for victim survivors
- Immigration and Citizenship
- Family Reunification
- Non-legal advocacy to access victim rights
We advise victim-survivors at all stages of their recovery ‘journeys’ to:
- Facilitate early identification of victim-survivors and ensure access to vital support including crisis support
- Support victim-survivors in their socialisation and integration journeys in Scotland
- Reduce the risk of re-trafficking and break the continuum of exploitation
- Inform our wider work in improving the legal and social landscape for enhancing the anti-trafficking responses in Scotland, UK and beyond.
We practice a trauma-informed, holistic human-rights based approach in all of our work with victim-survivors. Our model of legal advice provision has been classed as a model of best practice by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Legal Outreach
We run twice weekly free and confidential legal advice surgeries to those who may have experienced trafficking or exploitation, to understand their rights and entitlements, understand their options, and support them to access the help they may need.
To refer to our surgery, please complete the referral form.
We also provide free second-tier advice to organisations assisting victim-survivors of trafficking and exploitation. To get in touch, please complete the referral form.
Peer Support Programme and Lived Experience work
Our Peer Support Programme, the first of its kind in Scotland, provides holistic support to survivors of human trafficking to assist in their integration and socialisation journeys. Survivor designed and led; the Programme brings together Survivors who have made their lives in Scotland with those just starting out, to get advice, practical information, encouragement and inspiration.
All funding received for the Programme goes directly to Peer Supporters and participants.
Additional details about the programme are available below.
- The programme started as a pilot in 2020 as part of the ASSIST project, funded by the European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF). The project was in collaboration with experts from Ireland, Spain, Italy and Germany and focused on the integration of trafficked women recovering from sexual exploitation, taking into account the gender dimension of trafficking in Europe and the gender specific harms and trauma associated with trafficking for sexual exploitation. Through ASSIST, we brought together a group of inspiring women with lived experience of trafficking to share their views on the importance of lived experience in designing and delivering anti-trafficking solutions at all levels. They also developed the pilot Peer Support Programme, the success of which let to developing the current Programme, as well as coproduced a Know Your Rights leaflet which has been expanded to cover key information for victim-survivors of trafficking and exploitation.
Policy, Research and Training
We are members of the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group (ATMG), a coalition established in 2009 to monitor the UK’s implementation of European anti-trafficking legislation. The group uses a human rights-based approach to examine all types of human trafficking, including internal trafficking and the trafficking of British nationals, to protect the well-being and best interests of victims of human trafficking.
We have been part of the team working with the Child Protection Team at Glasgow City Council developing and training on the Home Office pilot to devolve decision making for child victims of human trafficking and exploitation in Glasgow.
We are a member of two Scottish Government Action Area groups in relation to the implementation of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Strategy as well as members of the Scottish Parliament Cross Party group on Human Trafficking. We are also members of the Child Trafficking Working Group at Glasgow City Council.
We have contributed to UK and international research since the start of the project. At the moment, we are contributing to a research project titled Pathways Through Liberation- Revealing Survivors’ Support Journeys Outside of The UK National Referral Mechanism which is led by the University of Nottingham’s Rights Lab in collaboration with a number of partners across the UK and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
We deliver a range of bespoke training in the areas we work on and please get in touch with us if you would like to discuss any training needs.
Funding
The important and innovative work of our centre is supported by funding from
