“COVID Has Taken Its Toll on Us”: The Pervasive Effects of COVID-19 on Programs Supporting Native People Who Have Experienced Human Trafficking

The Office on Trafficking in Persons established the Demonstration Grants to Strengthen the Response to Victims of Human Trafficking in Native Communities (VHT-NC) Program to address the critical need for support for Native American people who have experienced human trafficking. The program aims to build, expand, and sustain organizational and community capacity to deliver services to Native American people who have experienced human trafficking. In 2020, six VHT-NC projects were awarded three-year grants to provide culturally responsive and trauma-informed participant outreach and identification, comprehensive case management and service provision, and training to respond to human trafficking in their communities. This 2024 Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief explores the impact of the pandemic on the implementation of programs specifically designed to address human trafficking in Native communities. This analysis includes the following ways that COVID-19 impacted VHT-NC program implementation: (1) staffing and organizational challenges, (2) increased vulnerability to human trafficking in the community, (3) barriers to participant identification, (4) partnership and collaboration challenges, and (5) barriers to service delivery.