WHO WE ARE
Mission
The San Francisco Collaborative Against Human Trafficking (SFCAHT) is committed to ending human trafficking through collaboration, education, outreach, advocacy, and supporting survivors of human trafficking by taking a zero tolerance stance on exploitation, violence, and human trafficking and building a strong group of anti-trafficking advocates and experts in the Bay Area.
Vision
SFCAHT envisions a local and global community that fully comprehends the value of each human life and abhors any practice that denies a person her or his right to live a life free from violence, exploitation, or slavery. To ensure this vision becomes a reality for San Francisco and beyond, SFCAHT is committed to preventing human trafficking, prosecuting traffickers, and protecting survivors of human trafficking by building a strong collaborative of anti-trafficking advocates and experts in San Francisco.
SFCAHT is a San Francisco based initiative that addresses human trafficking in the Bay Area. SFCAHT is also committed to addressing the global impacts of human trafficking, since, as a collaborative, SFCAHT recognizes how the local networks of human trafficking are connected by and impact global responses to human trafficking.
A central purpose for SFCAHT is to increase awareness about trafficking and anti-trafficking efforts by providing outreach and education both to those who are directly impacted by human trafficking and to the community of San Francisco. Increasing awareness and enhancing the collective and systemic response to trafficking requires information, and SFCAHT is committed to supporting stakeholders and the wider community by tracking data related to human trafficking. With information comes the mandate to act, and SFCAHT will support community action by monitoring and advocating for local, state, and national legislation that is anti-trafficking focused.
Protecting survivors of trafficking is a priority for SFCAHT, and SFCAHT serves as a support for anti-trafficking social service providers, and all others working with survivors, by providing a forum for sharing best practices, raising awareness of emerging issues, and collaborating to create efficiencies and expand existing resources to better meet the needs of survivors.
Because San Francisco is a source, transit, and destination point for human trafficking, SFCAHT’s vision of an entire community dedicated to ending trafficking requires a collaboration of stakeholders with myriad backgrounds and expertise working progressively in the city of San Francisco to address human trafficking. In order to holistically address human trafficking and support anti-trafficking efforts, the collaborative comprises nongovernmental organizations, government agencies, law enforcement agencies, service providers, educators, and community members.
SFCAHT is a San Francisco based initiative that addresses human trafficking in the Bay Area. SFCAHT is also committed to addressing the global impacts of human trafficking, since, as a collaborative, SFCAHT recognizes how the local networks of human trafficking are connected by and impact global responses to human trafficking.
A central purpose for SFCAHT is to increase awareness about trafficking and anti-trafficking efforts by providing outreach and education both to those who are directly impacted by human trafficking and to the community of San Francisco. Increasing awareness and enhancing the collective and systemic response to trafficking requires information, and SFCAHT is committed to supporting stakeholders and the wider community by tracking data related to human trafficking. With information comes the mandate to act, and SFCAHT will support community action by monitoring and advocating for local, state, and national legislation that is anti-trafficking focused.
Protecting survivors of trafficking is a priority for SFCAHT, and SFCAHT serves as a support for anti-trafficking social service providers, and all others working with survivors, by providing a forum for sharing best practices, raising awareness of emerging issues, and collaborating to create efficiencies and expand existing resources to better meet the needs of survivors.
Because San Francisco is a source, transit, and destination point for human trafficking, SFCAHT’s vision of an entire community dedicated to ending trafficking requires a collaboration of stakeholders with myriad backgrounds and expertise working progressively in the city of San Francisco to address human trafficking. In order to holistically address human trafficking and support anti-trafficking efforts, the collaborative comprises nongovernmental organizations, government agencies, law enforcement agencies, service providers, educators, and community members.
Purpose
SFCAHT subscribes to and promotes the United Nations definition of human trafficking, which describes human trafficking as:
“The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation."
SFCAHT uses the following overarching values to frame its work:
“The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation."
SFCAHT uses the following overarching values to frame its work:
- SFCAHT believes advocacy efforts should focus on the plight of all domestic and international survivors of human trafficking, all types of human trafficking, including both labor and sex trafficking, all immigrant and ethnic populations, all gender and sexuality identifications, and all age groups;
- Fighting human trafficking requires public awareness, outreach, and education in a comprehensive manner that illustrates the needs of all types of survivors and shines a light on all forms of trafficking;
- All anti-human trafficking initiatives should be created within a human rights framework, which demands that:
- Individuals should be free from oppression and violence;
- Individuals should have the right to self-determination and self-sufficiency; and
- Individuals should be free from cultural, social, economic, political, and moral barriers and judgments;
- Individuals should be free from oppression and violence;
- SFCAHT supports enforcement against traffickers without increased criminalization, penalization, punishment, and judgment of survivors of human trafficking, while at the same time minimizing collateral damage to undocumented workers and others who are not victims of human trafficking;
- All efforts to combat human trafficking should be comprehensive, with support and enhancement of law enforcement efforts complemented by fully-resourced and expanded social services for survivors in the Bay Area