Representative of 21 countries were asked to develop advocacy strategy to prevent trafficking at the Biennial meeting of Christian Organisations Against Trafficking in Human Beings (COATNET) held at Brasilia, Brazil on November 9-14, 2017.

COATNET is a network that links together many Christian groups which are fighting human trafficking. They raise public awareness, fight the root causes, advocate for migration and economic policies, advocate for better anti-trafficking laws, cooperate with authorities, churches, and relevant civil society actors and help trafficking survivors start a new life.

Members choose a topic from their work experience and enacted their advocacy strategies. Strategies were developed on preventing trafficking in maritime industry, trafficking for labour and exploitation and trafficking in crisis.

A joint session and sharing with the representatives of Anglican Alliance and Salvation Army working against human trafficking gave opportunity to build better cooperation among the networks. The cross learning helped in understanding various measures taken by various groups and organisations from Latin America and Caribbean region. The experience sharing among the participants working against trafficking in maritime industry, trafficking in crisis, trafficking for labour exploitation specially children.

USA being one of the largest consumer of sea food shared their experience on prevent exploitation in maritime industry. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) advocated to have fair supply chain and stop exploitation of fishermen. They contacted local people through different churches. People were sensitized and asked to sign the post card stating if the sea food company do not clean up their supply chain people will not going to buy sea food products from their company. 30,000 post cards were send to one of the biggest sea food company in USA which compelled company to take action and also have a meeting with USCCB. The company promised to clean up their supply chain.

This clear example gives an insight that consumers have the power to influence the giant companies by making them accountable and promote fair trade.