In our advocacy work, the Caribbean Program of Free the Slaves continues to call for and work towards meaningful youth engagement to address trafficking in persons and child exploitation in the region.
For example, in March 2025, we collaborated with Youth with Disabilities Connection to support their participation in the CNN Freedom Project’s #MyFreedomDay campaign. Later, in preparation for the 2025 Caribbean Anti-Trafficking Conference hosted by the Caribbean Coalition Against Trafficking in Persons last July, the agenda included a Youth Forum about how trafficking in persons affects children and youth, to listen to their recommendations on ending this scourge.
Following this trend, we were excited to help coordinate a more regional observance of #MyFreedomDay this year, especially as 2026 marked the 10th anniversary of the CNN Freedom Project. In keeping with this year’s theme – “Marking 10 Years – Progress and Hurdles in Combating Trafficking” – we wanted to highlight key areas of progress in addressing child labor and trafficking, identify challenges to our ability to end this scourge globally, and recommend solutions to address them.
For a video to observe #MyFreedomDay, we were honored to collaborate with Dr. Cherisse Francis from the Caribbean Coalition Against Trafficking In Persons, Mr. Richard Pinas from the CARICOM Youth Ambassadors Programme, Ms. Judy Sango from Youth with Disabilities Connection, and Ms. Soleil-Marie Collins from Sexual Assault Survivors Stand. This collaboration created a dynamic team of passionate youth advocates from Barbados, Suriname, Dominica, and Trinidad and Tobago, respectively.
As we met to discuss the way forward, we agreed that several areas of progress deserve to be celebrated.
First, more Caribbean countries now have anti-trafficking legislation or specialized provisions that create separate offences for trafficking of adults and trafficking of children, with higher penalties for persons convicted of the latter offence.
Second, more countries are developing child-friendly resources that break down the definition of trafficking and provide age-appropriate examples of how it happens so that children and young people can protect themselves against trafficking, including when it happens online.
Third, when children are trafficked or suspected of being trafficked, dedicated child protection agencies and protocols are used in addition to traditional law enforcement to provide trauma-informed, age-appropriate care that supports children’s reintegration into families, education, and society.
While we felt these were worthy accomplishments, we also needed to highlight some pervasive challenges that hindered the full realization of the child protection envisioned in the Palermo Protocol, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The picture painted by the available data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) gives us cause for concern.
The 2024 UNODC Global Trafficking in Persons Report shows that child trafficking has tripled over the past 15 years, with children and youth being the highest demographic among identified trafficking victims in the Caribbean and Central America region.
The ILO and UNICEF’s 2024 Global Report on Child Labor , published in June 2025, revealed that of the estimated 138 million children in child labor, 54 million of them are in hazardous work. At the 6th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in February 2026, the Marrakech Global Framework for Action against Child Labour acknowledged that the goal of eradicating all forms of child labor, as proposed in Target 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals, had not been met.
Despite these realities, children and youth, especially those with disabilities, and survivors of child exploitation, remain excluded from meaningful participation in the design, implementation, and evaluation of policies, plans, and programs proposed to safeguard and protect them from trafficking. The absence of survivors of child labor at the plenary table to develop the newly adopted “Global Framework for Action against Child Labour” at the 6th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in February 2026 is a recent international example.
Suggestions for a more successful future in child protection include the meaningful engagement of youth (especially young survivors and youth with disabilities) by national governments and international agencies in the design, implementation, and evaluation of policies, programs, and activities meant to attract their attention, protect them from trafficking, and help them to heal in the aftermath of exploitation.
The anticipated prevention envisaged in well-meaning policies and national plans of action will seldom materialize without a dedicated, funded, consistent campaign to change the conditions that allow contemporary forms of slavery to persist at the local community level. That is where cultural norms are challenged and changed, resilience is built, and people experiencing vulnerability (including children and youth) are empowered.
Law enforcement and judicial systems must be more efficient and effective so that more perpetrators are identified, held accountable, and sentenced consistently, including orders for appropriate compensation to their victims, now survivors. True deterrence is a byproduct of effective enforcement that sends the message that no one is above the law, especially those who harm children.
Free the Slaves will continue to champion the rights of children and youth to live free from abuse and exploitation. We will include them as equal stakeholders to help shape the initiatives that are intended to affect them. We will respect their voices and defend their right to participation.
Congratulations and Happy Anniversary to the CNN Freedom Project! Thank you for your global campaign to educate and empower children and youth to take a stand against contemporary forms of slavery.
