Today, Chargé d’Affaires to Côte d’Ivoire Joann M. Lockard, First Lady of Côte d’Ivoire Dominique Ouattara, and Minister of Employment and Social Protection Mr. Adama Camara signed the U.S.-Côte d’Ivoire Child Protection Compact (CPC) Partnership, a historic non-binding multi-year initiative to address child sex trafficking and forced child labor in Côte d’Ivoire. Implementation of this jointly developed partnership will strengthen the efforts of the Ivoirian government as they work with national stakeholders and civil society organizations in a sustainable, coordinated fashion to address child sex trafficking and forced child labor.
The CPC Partnership signing comes after several months of discussions between representatives of the Government of Côte d’Ivoire, the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP Office), which is responsible for leading the Department’s global engagement to combat human trafficking, and the U.S. Embassy in Abidjan.
With the signing of this CPC Partnership, the TIP Office, working with Congress intends to provide up to $10 million in U.S. foreign assistance that will be awarded to nongovernmental and/or international organizations who will collaborate with relevant Ivoirian government ministries and the TIP Office to implement the action plan that has been developed to achieve the objectives of the CPC Partnership. These objectives include ensuring prevention efforts are better coordinated and targeted across the country; providing protection services that are readily accessible to child trafficking victims using a trauma-informed and victim-centered approach; ensuring justice sector actors utilize existing trafficking-specific legal frameworks to identify child trafficking victims, investigate cases, and prosecute and convict perpetrators of child trafficking in a child-friendly, victim-centered, and trauma-informed manner; and promoting coordination across relevant ministries, civil society, local communities, and foreign counterparts.
With the signing of this CPC Partnership, the TIP Office, working with Congress, intends to provide up to $10 million in U.S. foreign assistance that will be awarded to nongovernmental and/or international organizations who will collaborate with relevant Ivoirian government ministries and the TIP Office to implement the action plan that has been developed to achieve the objectives of the CPC Partnership.
The TIP Office will select implementing partners through a competitive solicitation process. The Notice of Funding Opportunity will be posted on the TIP Office’s website.
