Pacific Links Foundation
COMBATING HUMAN TRAFFICKING
The Pacific Links Foundation leads counter-trafficking efforts in areas of highest risk in Vietnam, including industrial parks and along the bordering provinces of Cambodia, China and Laos, where victims are twice as likely to be trafficked than those in developed countries. Pacific Links seeks to prevent trafficking by empowering these most vulnerable populations with economic Opportunities by investing in and educating at-risk youth and helping survivors to build new lives.
Victoria’s Secret & Co. established a partnership with the Pacific Links Foundation in 2007, focusing specifically on their scholarship and factory training programs.
The academic scholarship program provides access to educational opportunities for at-risk young women grades 8 through 12 – one of the most effective tools in the prevention of human trafficking. The program includes specialized camps (workforce readiness skills, STEM, English), online learning, mentoring, and long-term education support school fees, books and supplies, tutoring, health insurance, bicycles, internet access, and tablets for students in remote, impoverished and high-risk areas, increasing their self-awareness and economic prospects as they grow. The program also supports families and communities by building relationships through home visits, family days and summer camps.
Through Victoria’s Secret & Co.’s financial support, nearly one-third of scholarship recipients have benefited from the program. To date, the company has awarded more than 3,000 scholarships, enabled more than 1,400 young women to participate in summer camp and provided more than 700 bicycles to participants.
In addition to supporting the scholarship program, Victoria’s Secret & Co. was the first partnering company to sponsor Pacific Links’ Factory Awareness to Counter Trafficking program (FACT) and continues to actively support its expansion. The FACT program provides specialized accelerated learning workshops focusing on trafficking and forced labor prevention among workers, managers and factory owners throughout the supply chain, helping to establish ethical practices in worker recruitment and retention and serving as a source for information and resources. Victoria’s Secret & Co. is one of the main supporters of the FACT program, impacting more than 43,000. To date, the FACT program has impacted more than 68,000 factory workers and managers since 2013.
To date Pacific Links has served more than 200,000 individuals through their initiatives, including trafficking survivors, at-risk youth and their families and factory workers and managers.