Consultant, Best Practices for Community Engagement to Address Forced Labor

Terms of Reference and Request for Proposals:

Who We Are

International Justice Mission (IJM) is a global organization that protects people in poverty from violence. IJM partners with local authorities in 33 program offices across 18 countries to combat slavery, violence against women and children, among other forms of violence. Our teams work side-by-side with local authorities and governments to protect and restore survivors, hold perpetrators accountable in local courts, and strengthen justice systems. IJM’s programming is based on the theory of change that strengthening justice systems to enforce the law deters criminals and protects people from violence. IJM and our partners are helping local authorities protect more than 400 million people globally from violence.

Project Background

The goal of IJM’s forced labor program in APAC is ‘Effective justice systems across five countries in Southeast Asia protect over 31 million people living in poverty from forced labor’. IJM defines protection as the array of benefits that accrue to people in poverty through a strengthened justice system. This is assessed through four key domains of change: prevalence, reliance, performance, and confidence. People are protected from violence when the justice system acts as a deterrent to perpetrators (prevalence of the crime reduces); is attractive to victims to report crimes and pursue cases (victim reliance increases); performs well on those cases (performance of the public justice system improves); and has the confidence of key stakeholders (stakeholder confidence increases). IJM’s program currently works across five countries – Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Myanmar (with plans to expand to the Philippines) – through coordinated country projects and teams to address cross-border and domestic forced labor.

To scale the program effectively, IJM has developed a program protection model, based on IJM’s best practices globally to date, which provides a framework within which to develop context-specific interventions that can be replicated to achieve protection at scale. The protection model is comprised of six ‘dimensions’, all of which are necessary and are implemented in a synergistic manner to achieve IJM’s program goal. These are: 1) casework, 2) capacity development, 3) data management, 4) survivor leadership, 5) community engagement, and 6) advocacy. Context-specific interventions are designed in each dimension to achieve protection for vulnerable and migrant workers.

This is a home-based position with travels within Southeast Asia.

Scope and Objectives

The purpose of this consultancy is to inform the development of effective community engagement interventions for IJM’s justice system strengthening program and country projects on forced labor in Asia-Pacific.

The overall objective of this consultancy is ‘to document learning and best practices on community engagement to inform the development of effective community engagement interventions for IJM’s justice system strengthening program on forced labor in Asia-Pacific.’

The specific objectives of the assignment are:

1. Document past and existing practices within IJM’s APAC forced labor program and projects on community engagement to address forced labor.
2. Document best practices in community engagement in external forced labor, anti-trafficking, or similar initiatives.
3. Provide recommendations for the design of effective community engagement interventions that can address forced labor.

The primary stakeholder for this consultancy is IJM’s program teams working to strengthen Public Justice Systems (PJS) and mobilize and engage communities in justice system strengthening projects in source and destination communities for migrant and vulnerable workers in Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia, and eventually the Philippines. However, the consultancy outputs will be shared more broadly among IJM’s other programs and with external stakeholders as appropriate.

Key Responsibilities

1. Document past and existing practices on community engagement being implemented by IJM’s country teams and implementing partners and assess the effectiveness of each. This will also include the links to interventions in other dimensions of IJM’s protection model and how community engagement supports these interventions and vice-versa, particularly the synergies with the survivor leadership, advocacy, and casework dimensions. This will be done through visits and consultations with IJM’s country teams and partners as well as communities and survivor leaders where feasible in program countries.
2. Conduct a literature review to draw out best practices for community engagement in forced labor, labor trafficking, or similar programs in the region and globally.
3. Distil and identify key components for effective community engagement interventions in forced labor / labor trafficking projects, particularly in IJM’s forced labor program countries.
4. Make recommendations to strengthen the effectiveness of existing interventions and to guide the design and development of new interventions that are viable in the contexts IJM works in.

Expected Outputs

1. An inception report and discussion with IJM on the proposed methodology, approach, timeline, and report structure.
2. Brief country-specific reports on past and existing practices on community engagement and an assessment of their effectiveness.
3. An overall draft report with best practices, key components, case studies, and recommendations for IJM’s forced labor program to design and develop effective community engagement interventions.
4. A presentation to IJM teams and implementing partners on the findings and recommendations of the consultancy.
5. A final report incorporating IJM’s inputs and feedback, with the country-specific reports included as annexes.

Deliverables & Timeline

The consultancy is expected to be completed over 40 business days within a period of five months from the date of contract signature.

A tentative timeline is as follows:

Qualifications & Experience

• Demonstrated understanding and experience (minimum of 5 years) in:
  • Best practices in community empowerment and participatory approaches in development programming (anti-trafficking or labor rights programming desirable).
  • Participatory approaches to elicit stakeholder perspectives and feedback.
• Knowledge and understanding of government structures and public justice systems in Southeast Asia.
• Knowledge and understanding of approaches and best practices to address forced labor or labor trafficking preferable.
• Connections with local consultants in each country that can support the assignment with language/interpretation and other inputs.

Request for Proposal Timeline & Application Process

Interested candidates may express their interest in a written response to this RFP through email detailing qualifications, experience of conducting similar assessments, estimated costs, and timeline. IJM is open to an initial consultation prior to final submission of written interest in the RFP. Qualified candidates can also submit any questions they may have ahead of the initial consultation meeting, which will be answered during the initial consultation. The application should contain:

1. Cover letter explaining qualifications, experience, and competence of the interested party for this assessment project.
2. Resume package.
3. Consultancy Fee + an estimate of all the other costs of carrying out the assignment.

The deadline for proposal submission is close of business on 15 July 2024. Questions, written responses, and completed applications (in PDF) should be submitted and emailed to: apac_recruiting@ijm.org

IJM holds strict safeguarding principles and a zero tolerance to violations of the Safeguarding Policy, Protection against Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment Policy, and Code of Ethics. Candidate selection is based on technical competence, recruitment, selection and hiring criteria subject to assessing the candidates value congruence and thorough background, police clearance, and reference check processes. IJM requires a background check, police clearance and thorough review of references with an employment offer and/or employment contract.