OSCE Conference on Human Trafficking

As part of my internship with UN.GIFT, I had the opportunity to attend the OSCE’s 11th annual Conference on Combating Human Trafficking. Over 300 member-state delegates, NGO representatives, academics, and law enforcement officials attended the conference in the Hofburg in Vienna.
I had no idea what to expect when I arrived in the first session, put on my translation headphones and opened my notebook to take notes. Two days later, I left feeling unclear on the purpose of the conference, but with a peaked interest on specific topics…and with lots of Spanish practice (having set my headset to Spanish to make the long sessions more interesting.)
The unclear bit: it seemed that it was such a huge opportunity to produce some kind of clear outcome—yet, ultimately at the end of the two days everyone simply said goodbye and went home. I remain curious why there wasn’t break-out sessions to produce a list of best practices or some sort of joint statement, or SOMETHING…It was likely the largest gathering of people at all levels in the fight against human trafficking, yet a large majority of the conference was spent making vague political statements rather than solid discussion of methods that produce success, common challenges, etc.
The bit that peaked my interest: A theme throughout the conference was a call for data-driven programming. It seemed that everyone agreed that there needed to be a more strategic approach to combating trafficking and that key to this would be having better ways of measuring outcomes.
Overall I was really glad that I attended the conference, and very happy to have made contacts with amazingly inspirational individuals who have worked in the field since before the Palermo Protocol.