Approach

Together with communities of migrant workers, we set up grievance mechanisms to identify the impact of adverse human rights affecting migrant workers  and work with them to seek remedy and justice. Our goal is to make sure that the support is sustainable by addressing root causes and preventing human rights abuses from happening in the first place.

ANALISE

Understanding the Context

We seek to holistically understand the context for every project we work on. Legal factors (such as labour laws, domestic work decrees and regulations in the supply chain) play an important part, but so do cultural factors, such as a community’s comfort level when speaking about debt or asking for support. We also examine current practices on the ground, as there is often a difference between laws or policies and actual practice. We also take into consideration the location, cultural, societal, gender, and sector-related factors.

Identifying issues

After more than 9 years working on the ground, we are known among different communities. Most of our projects are initiated by individuals or groups of a community when they reach out to us. Exceptions are when we are looking for particular workers, whose families are looking for, and when we need to identify larger populations of a particular group to understand how widespread issues are (birth rights). There is no checklist or questionnaire that we follow, we listen to their issues and have conversations identifying root causes and other issues that they might not be aware of (access to justice).

Collecting data

The collection of data allows us to understand whether an issue is affecting a small number of individuals, a particular community, or whether it is widespread. All data collected is primary and it is also used to identify victims of modern slavery and other issues. The data also helps us identify when people are vulnerable and respond in real-time. An example of this is our Freedom for Our Sisters project, where gathering data enabled us to identify and respond to the most urgent cases and revealed widespread issues and their systemic causes.

BUILD SOLUTIONS

Designing human-centred solutions

Together with communities or clients, we design human-centred solutions using impactful approaches such as Service Design thinking.

Building communities

When building solutions, we will build communities. These communities help to gain trust, work together, empower and implement projects, especially when the community is large. The communities also serve as a platform for individuals to ask questions, not feel alone (particularly domestic workers), share updates as well as to just come by and say hello. 

IMPLEMENT

Creating partnerships 

Working with others has been a key to the success of our projects. We work with community leaders, initiatives, organisations, businesses and government. With every project our partnerships strengthens and grows, giving us the opportunity to create greater impact.

Providing Remedy 

Preventing human rights abuses is a fundamental part of our work. However, we also develop ways to ensure that victims have access to remedies. If victims are not remedied by the relevant authorities, we provide restitution whenever possible. Through restitution we try to restore the victim’s original situation before the harm was done. This can include, restoration of liberty, identity or return to their home country. With our partners, we ensure that they have access to rehabilitation.

Accessing Justice

Our approach focuses on empowering individuals and communities to assert their rights. However, this is not always possible, in these cases we engage with legal representation for communities to access justice which otherwise access to justice would not be possible.

MEASURE

Ensuring Sustainability

Each of our projects is designed to be sustainable in both the lives of the workers and in our efforts. For example, we invest our knowledge and time to ensure that communities are involved throughout the projects, building ownership and continuing carrying out activities.

Reporting

We have created some of the largest datasets reflecting the issues experienced by migrant workers. We analyse the data and we create reports, to highlight our findings and draft data-based recommendations. Most of these reports are available to the public.