Integrating crisis-related provisions into anti-trafficking National Action Plans (NAPs) - Issue Brief

Crises and emergencies function as powerful multipliers of vulnerability, and traffickers are quick to exploit the opportunities created by instability and human suffering. Experiences from crisis situations demonstrate that trafficking risks emerge or deepen rapidly, often transcend borders, and manifest in complex and multifaceted ways. These dynamics, which persist even after crises recede, require responses that are forward‑looking, strategically planned, comprehensive, and adaptable. National Action Plans (NAPs) to combat human trafficking as midterm strategy documents are a core tool to develop and implement such responses. This issue brief highlights positive scalable practices regarding the reflection of crisis-related provisions in countries’ NAPs with a view to enhancing preparedness of the national anti-trafficking mechanisms for possible future situations based on the lessons learned. The examples presented in this paper are intended to serve as reference points for National Anti‑Trafficking Co-ordinators, Task Forces or Committees, and other equivalent mechanisms, supporting them in the development of national legislative and policy provisions, while also encouraging authorities in charge of emergency preparedness and response to consider human trafficking and co-ordinate with the above. Finally, the brief provides government stakeholders with an actionable four-pillar framework for translating crisis-related concerns into concrete policy responses within their NAPs.