Deadline: 1-Mar-24
The Secretariat of the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery (UNVFCFS) has launched the 2025 call for applications.
According to General Assembly resolution 46/122, grants from the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery (hereafter referred to as “the Fund”) shall be given to extend, through established channels of assistance, humanitarian, legal and financial aid to individuals whose human rights have been severely violated as a result of contemporary forms of slavery.
Contemporary forms of slavery which qualify for project grants include traditional slavery, serfdom, servitude, forced labour, debt bondage, the worst forms of child labour, forced and early marriage, the sale of wives and inherited widows, trafficking in persons and of human organs, sexual slavery, sale of children, commercial sexual exploitation of children and children in armed conflict.
Projects that address other violations of human rights that exhibit the primary characteristics of ownership, control and violent coercion may also qualify for project grants, subject to the availability of funding.
Funding Information
- Grants are awarded for a one-year period (1 January to 31 December) of the following year for amounts ranging from 15,000 USD to 35,000 USD.
Eligibility Criteria
- As a general rule, only applications by civil society organizations are admissible. Applications by governmental, parliamentary or administrative entities, political parties and/or national liberation movements are inadmissible.
- Applications must be submitted in English, French or Spanish.
Criteria
- As a rule, only applications by non-governmental organizations are admissible. Applications by governmental, parliamentary or administrative entities, political parties or national liberation movements are inadmissible.
- The Fund distinguishes between the following categories of applicant organizations:
- First-time applicants: organizations which have never received a grant from the Fund;
- Returning applicants: organizations which have received a grant from the Fund in the past but not in the previous year;
- On-going applicants: organizations which are currently receiving a grant from the Fund, divided in two sub-categories:
- organizations submitting a continuation of a funded project proposal in the same country of implementation;
- organizations submitting a different project in the same country of implementation or a project in a different country of implementation.
- As a rule, organizations should only submit one application under each call for applications. The project for which funding is sought may address the needs of more than one target group.
- In order to avoid retaining fees on the funds channeled and to maintain control over its use, the Fund does not, as a rule, authorize the re-granting to another Organization.
- Priority in allocating grants is given to projects aimed at reparation, empowerment and integration of victims of contemporary forms of slavery through the provision of direct assistance. Assistance may include medical, psychological, social, legal, humanitarian, educational assistance, vocational or skills training or other support to their independent livelihood. The Board, from time to time, may determine areas of focus in relation to yearly calls for applications.
- Beneficiaries of projects must be victims of contemporary forms of slavery and, when applicable, members of their families. Projects may include components aimed at preventing the revictimization of assisted victims.
- Project grants cannot serve the purpose of direct financial compensation to victims.
- As a rule, the Fund will not support the capital costs of projects for construction work (e.g. for the building of shelters, schools, etc.).
- Projects should consider the victims’ need for inclusion into society and their rights to dignity, security and education.
For more information, visit Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
