UNODC is Looking for Human Rights Associate (Closes 14 Sept 2023)

United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime

StaffDesk September 8, 2023

3 minutes read

UNODC’s mission is to contribute to global peace and security, human rights and development by making the world safer from drugs, crime, corruption and terrorism.

The UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons is the first legally binding instrument with an internationally recognized definition of human trafficking.

This definition provides a vital tool for the identification of victims, whether men, women, or children, and for the detection of all forms of exploitation which constitute human trafficking. Countries that ratify this treaty must criminalize human trafficking and develop anti-trafficking laws in line with the Protocol’s legal provisions

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The links between human rights and the fight against trafficking are well established. From its earliest days to the present, human rights law has unequivocally proclaimed the fundamental immorality and unlawfulness of one person appropriating the legal personality, labor, or humanity of another.

Human rights law has prohibited discrimination based on race and sex; it has demanded equal or at least certain key rights for non-citizens; it has decried and outlawed arbitrary detention, forced labor, debt bondage, forced marriage, and the sexual exploitation of children and women; and it has championed freedom of movement and the right to leave and return to one’s own country (United Nations Human Rights, 2014).

Trafficking in Persons is a public security concern, affecting citizens of southern African as well as globally. TIP occurs in all Member States of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which are either source, transit, or destination countries for victims of trafficking in persons (VOTs).

There are victims that are recruited and exploited within their own countries (internal TIP), others are exploited in other countries within the region, while several VOTs are recruited from the SADC region and exploited in other countries on the African continent or in other regions around the world.

It is, therefore, evident that TIP is too complex to be addressed by individual countries in isolation; it is often, but not always, a criminal activity whose operations extend across borders. To respond to this crime in southern Africa, Member States of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) developed the 10 Year Strategic Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children (2009 – 2019), which serves as a blueprint for regional and national responses to TIP.

Task description

Under the direct supervision of Regional Representative for the Regional Office for Southern Africa (ROSAF) and the respective TIP/SOM programme manager [Programme Coordinator: Trafficking Persons and Smuggling of Migrants], or his designated mandated representative(s), the UN Youth Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:

• Provide support to the implementation of the Regional Cooperation Framework;

• Keep abreast of all Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants developments and support the preparation of appropriate briefings and reports;

• Support the coordination and implementation of activities/tasks related to ROSAF and TIP/SOM unit to be implemented in the SADC region;

• Provide substantive support to programme planning, design, and execution to the TIP/SOM project;

• Support with the preparation of annual reports for headquarters;

• Provide support to the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of TIP/SOM programme activities in the ROSAF region;

• Provide input on project/programme terms of references, correspondence, and other related project documentation on TIP/SOM in SADC region;

• Contribute to the preparation of various written draft outputs, e.g. background papers, briefing notes, analytical notes, sections of reports and studies, inputs to publications, etc., relating to TIP/SOM and ROSAF;

• Provide administrative and substantive support to TIP/SOM programme in view of consultative and other meetings, workshops, conferences, etc., including proposing agenda topics, identifying, and proposing participants, preparing back-ground documents and presentations, handling logistics.