Since 2019, Partners of the Americas (Partners) has been working to combat forced labor in Paraguay through the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL)-funded project, Attaining Lasting Change for Better Enforcement of Labor and Criminal Law to Address Child Labor, Forced Labor and Human Trafficking (ATLAS).
As a sub-awardee of Winrock International, Partners has taken action in partnership with Lawyers Without Borders to strengthen the capacity of the Government of Paraguay to effectively enforce labor and criminal laws and to increase coordination amongst law enforcement and social protection entities. On March 25 on the International Day for the Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, we recognize these efforts.
ATLAS has provided technical trainings on child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking laws and regulations to 192 labor, judicial, and law enforcement officials and 215 members of the Departmental Commission on Human Trafficking to strengthen their capacity to effectively address these issues in the project’s five target departments (Boquerón, Itapúa, Ñeembucú, Caaguazú, and Guairá).
In addition to training government officials, Partners has advocated for greater protections against forced labor and human trafficking through engaging in awareness-raising activities. These include four stagings of an informational play on human trafficking, presented to a total of 427 people in communities vulnerable to the practice, as well as a nationwide radio campaign on criadazgo, an extended form of domestic forced labor impacting youth, that reached approximately 1.5 million people throughout Paraguay.
The project’s training and awareness-raising initiatives are supported further by its ongoing collaboration with judicial and social protection institutions. By leading a participatory workshop platform known as Living Lab, ATLAS is collaborating with four judicial entities (the Public Ministry, Supreme Court of Justice, Ministry of Public Defense, and Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Social Security) to institutionalize the adoption of criteria for compensatory damages for victims of forced labor and other rights violations.
The technical trainings, awareness-raising, and collaborative institutional interventions provided by Partners and its partners through ATLAS support sustained efforts to combat forced labor and human trafficking in Paraguay — making advances to end the practice today and prevent it from occurring in the future.