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Capital Humano y Social Alternativo (CHS Alternativo) is a member organisation of GAATW in Peru. In September 2022, Jennifer Janssen from the GAATW secretariat conducted an interview with Andrea Querol, Founder and President of CHS Alternativo, to expand our knowledge about the organisation's history, recent work, and context.

JJ: Thank you very much for joining me in today's interview. I would like to start with the history of your organisation. Can you tell me about the origins of CHS Alternativo and why it was founded?

 Andrea Querol: CHS Alternativo emerged in 2003. It was an initiative of a group of professionals who wanted to work on issues of social development and the fight against poverty in general - economists, sociologists, psychologists. We were in contact with a foundation called ‘Peruanos Desaparecidos’ (Missing Peruvians) and they told us about the link between disappearances and human trafficking, and this is how we found out what human trafficking was, because it wasn’t something we knew about. It caught our attention and it seemed terrible to us that this can exist in the 21st century. We began to work together and to prioritise the fight against human trafficking and the protection of the rights of women, children and adolescents, who were the most affected groups.

Little by little, this initiative took shape and we decided to have four main areas of work: the central one was Assistance and Protection for which we created a centre for legal and psychosocial care that includes accompaniment of victims, referral and coordination with the state. Secondly, prevention and public advocacy, as a strategic line to inform and raise awareness among the vulnerable population and potential victims. Third, we developed an active role of surveillance, policy advocacy and social audit through regional and national watchdog groups. This allows the promotion of certain policies and legislation and we monitor the way the state implements them. We participated in the development of the first law on human trafficking in 2007 – and since then we have been working to improve and expand it to include forms of human trafficking that were not visible at the time and to make visible situations of exploitation, conditions of vulnerability and the importance of having political will so that things can move forward. The fourth area is Research and Knowledge production, which includes collection and analysis of data, as well as information on the basis of the victims' own experience.

CHS Alternativo team conducted a workshop on crisis management and care of girls, children and adolescents who are victims and survivors of human trafficking.

From the beginning I have always been motivated by clinical work and mental health care. I have worked for almost 15 years on issues related to drugs and what was called at that time as the fight against drugs. I have worked in the community, developing prevention projects, working with youth groups, building leadership, and finding out the problems in communities in order to intervene. From that work on drug prevention, I saw how violence was often linked to drugs and alcohol consumption. So in some way, I was always interested in the topic of intervening in the protection of the most vulnerable. At that time there was still talk of ‘white slavery’ because ’trafficking in persons’ didn’t exist, when we become aware of the number of exploited people, especially girls and women, we realised that the police understood it as ‘white slavery’ and that is when we began to work and try to understand the real situation in Peru. There were two reported cases at that time; now we are talking about more than 10,000 cases officially detected since 2004 by the prosecutor's office. 

JJ: What are the main problems you address and the communities you work with?

AQ: In Peru, we have a much stronger and much bigger presence of internal trafficking than international trafficking, that is, the majority of cases that we work with are cases of Peruvians who have been captured in their regions and are usually transferred from one region to another within the country and then exploited. With the Venezuelan crisis that started about four years ago, we have almost a million and a half Venezuelans who have migrated, and that has had a strong impact on Peruvian society in general but also obviously created extreme vulnerabilities for many Venezuelans. We have also had cases of Colombians, Pakistanis, Haitians and of course Peruvians who have been exploited abroad such as in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador. So the case of foreigners who are in a situation of trafficking and exploitation in the country has increased. But the bulk of cases that we are dealing with are Peruvians, mainly women, exploited within Peru, and now the next most common group is Venezuelans who have entered irregularly or entered regularly but do not have papers to work so they are being held both for labour and sexual exploitation.

Trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation has become more visible. Till a few years ago, the authorities (mainly the prosecutor's office and the police) recognised only trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and of minors – that’s where the concern was focused. We have been working to expand this understanding because we know that trafficking can manifest in various ways, especially labour exploitation. So now we are working a lot on forced labour - this occurs a lot in all the areas where there is informal trade and informal economies. Since the pandemic, the informal economy has gone from 70% to 77%, which means that the entire country is covered by informal economies, including informal and illegal mining, expanded in different parts of the country, and with presence of extreme exploitation of girls and women. There is also illegal logging, and all activities related to drug trafficking, as Peru is coca producer. Human trafficking and the cases we see are linked to all these criminal economies.

Providing training to labour unions on recognising and reporting forced labour cases.

JJ: During the pandemic, was there any change in the number of victims of trafficking?

 AQ: There are two figures that we have been able to document, also supported with data from the state. On the one hand, there is the number of reports of domestic violence as well as sexual abuse of minors, which visibly increased during the pandemic. The other is of missing girls and women: last year we had about 6,000 missing women (the Ombudsman’s office reports trafficking and gender-based violence like femicides as the causes between 2020 and 2022). Trafficking and exploitation figures practically disappeared in 2020 and 2021; one, because of the lockdown - we had a very strict confinement for almost a year, everything was closed because we were one of the countries with the highest death rates in the world. The state too remained closed until the end of 2021, the prosecutors did not go out for street raids or undertake other proceedings, and the police did not carry out operations either. All of this clearly decreased not only the number of rescues that were carried out but also reporting of possible trafficking, so the figures did not increase. But the number of disappearances tell us that there has been an increase - we know this from the communities and from listening to the victims that we are assisting. Due to the economic crisis, took up a variety of informal jobs without guarantees of any kind in far-off towns or settlements centred on illegal activities, and lost contact with their families, which could explain the increase in disappearances, thus possible forced labour or trafficking cases. We believe in the coming months or even in 2023, the situations of exploitation that may have been generated during the pandemic will start becoming visible.

CHS Alternativo received recognition from the High Court of Justice, Cusco, Peru for its commitment and cooperation in the activities of district authorities against trafficking, forced labour and all kinds of exploitation

JJ: How do you incorporate the perspectives and lessons learnt from working with victims of trafficking into your work?

AQ: When we provide direct assistance, such as helping people return to their places of origin or other types of help we always conduct a needs assessment- the work-plan can be short-term or long-term based on what they prefer. The average care time is two to three years. And in that period, we stimulate their social inclusion, what we call reintegration, through studies, employment, entrepreneurship, etc. We provide psychosocial and legal support, but when the victim or survivor expresses a specific need, or we observe that there is a need for another type of help, we refer them to various specialised centres that provide this type of service. In this, the pandemic has had a positive impact because it allowed us to reach out through the internet and offer workshops and psychological services to survivors who could not have received them before. We also offered tablets or phones to those who were completely isolated at home without any communication or support, so that they could receive these and other services.

One way we collect the needs and views of the victims and survivors themselves is through direct assistance and the other way is through research. For example, in the past few years we carried out three researches, together with GAATW, to document the testimonies of the victims. One was in 2013 - we collected the testimonies of victims about the assistance they received. This study was carried out by 17 GAATW members in several regions: Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Another research was to collect the specific experiences of Venezuelan migrants in relation to situations of violence at work. In the most recent one, we again collected the testimonies of Venezuelan migrants to understand their labour transitions and what difficulties they had in migrating from Venezuela to Peru.  

Additionally, we have carried out other studies to document good and bad practices of the state, through the testimonies of victims and their families. One recent research we did was to collect the testimonies of 30 victims and 10 of their relatives - mothers and grandparents - who shared with us everything they experienced from the moment the victim was captured to all that happened after the rescue and their interaction with the State authorities. They made proposals for change that should be taken into account.

In our work logic and our vision, the experiences of the victims and their needs expressed directly through them are extremely important. In the last 15 years we have supported more than 1,800 cases and we have everything documented and systematised, according to one of our policies.  This helps us understand how human trafficking has evolved.

JJ: Can you share with me one experience of failure and one of success in the work of CHS Alternativo?

Educational poster campaign against forced labour

AQ: There are many situations where we feel that, perhaps more than failing, it has not been possible to do what we would like to have done with regard to the care for the victims. We’ve had more than one case where we have lost contact with them even though they were doing well, they seemed more empowered and stable or they got a job, but then they were captured again or entered into situations of domestic violence, by men who perhaps took advantage of their vulnerability. Although they are not in a situation of trafficking, they’ve entered into a dynamic of violence in which it is difficult to intervene. All this makes us reflect and think about how to reach out to them.

Success stories…again speaking of the victims, we have many cases where they have rebuilt their lives. Some are in college, or have their own business, they’re supporting their families. As for public policy, we have managed to promote changes in policies, make the issue of trafficking visible and sensitise the authorities and the population in general. But also promote regulations and policies that can facilitate the prosecution of the crime and the protection of victims. Now there are specialised prosecutors, specialised police - all of this did not exist when we started and I think that part of the work we have done has promoted these changes. Our organisation is small but with highly motivated staff, we do a lot with a few people.

JJ: In your opinion, what makes CHS Alternativo unique?

AQ: At this time, we are the only organisation focused on human trafficking and other forms of exploitation in Peru. Other organisations focus, for example, on gender-based violence or child protection, or women's empowerment, and they see the issue of trafficking or forced labour as a smaller part in the framework of their projects. But we’re actually the only one that is specifically working on the issue of trafficking and other forms of exploitation.

JJ: I have no more questions; would you like to add anything else?

AQ: No, that is all. Thank you for the opportunity to share our experience.

JJ: It was a pleasure to meet you and learn more about your organisation. Thank you for your time.