Who We Are
The Anti-Trafficking Collaborative of the Bay Area (ATCBA) (formerly the Asian-Anti Trafficking Collaborative) is a coalition of three community-based, anti-violence and social justice organizations. The Asian Anti-Trafficking Collaborative (AATC), which comprised of the Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach (APILO), Asian Women’s Shelter (AWS), and Narika, was a natural alliance that formed after a long history of collaboration since the 1980s on issues of domestic violence and human trafficking. To expand our capacity to provide better supportive services for survivors of human trafficking, we added two new members in 2013: the SAGE Project (Standing Against Global Exploitation) and Mujeres Unidas y Activas. In 2018, the Collaborative members are APILO, AWS, and Banteay Srei. Together we provide culturally and linguistically appropriate, comprehensive legal and social services to survivors of human trafficking, regardless of gender, national origin, race, or ethnicity.
The goal of the ATCBA is to help trafficked men, women, and young people take steps that will transform them from victims to survivors and thrivers of trafficking. Trafficked persons want, and deserve a fighting chance for a life that can be about the pursuit of happiness, and not about mere survival. To advance this goal, the members of the ATCBA work with each client to identify and address their most emergent needs. The ATCBA works to stabilize each client’s immigration status, help reunite them with family members in the U.S., assist them with navigating multiple legal and social services systems to access benefits and preserve their rights, and help each individual gain the skills and knowledge that is crucial to enabling a self-sufficient, healthy, and stable life.
The ATCBA has served hundreds of survivors of human trafficking and continues to advocate and represent trafficked men, women, and children. Member agencies of the ATCBA spearheaded the passage of the first comprehensive state anti-trafficking law in the nation (AB 22), established local and national protocols to advance and protect victims’ rights. The former AATC was recognized as one of the top three model programs in the U.S.