IJM Philippines' leader receives TIP Award from the U.S. State Department

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 24th, 2024

IJM Philippines’ director Sam Inocencio has received a 2024 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Hero Award.

Presented by the Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, and the U.S. Department of State, this prestigious award is the highest honour given by the U.S. government for anti-slavery leadership around the world.

The TIP Report Hero award recognises Sam’s outstanding efforts in combatting human trafficking, bringing freedom and justice for survivors of online sexual exploitation of children.

Alongside the award, the U.S. Department of State released the 2024 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. The annual report provides a clear picture of the scale of trafficking and global efforts to address it. Each country is assigned an annual rating assessing their efforts to create and implement policies combating trafficking. Both the UK and the Philippines remain on Tier 1 this year.

What is the TIP report?

The Philippines government in particular has continued to demonstrate serious and sustained efforts to eliminate trafficking.

In the past 20 years of IJM Philippines, Sam Inocencio and his team, alongside government and local partners, have helped to decrease child sex trafficking by more than 70% across three provinces.

Together, they have worked with authorities to identify and bring to safety over 1,200 children and young people who have been trafficked and help them recover from the abuse they’ve suffered.

Thanks to IJM’s work with local authorities, these astonishing results mean that over one million people in the Philippines have been protected from ever being trafficked in the first place.

This award presented to Sam is the highest honour given by the U.S. government for anti-slavery leadership around the world and recognises the work of the entire IJM Philippines team and IJM’s work globally.

Reflecting on the award, Sam says:

“Receiving this recognition is a tremendous honour. It provides a powerful opportunity to accelerate our mission to protect vulnerable people in the Philippines and beyond.

I'm most proud of our collective work in reshaping the narrative around human trafficking in the Philippines - once perceived as a hotspot, the country is now a recognised global leader in implementing innovative solutions to combat the crime."

Online sexual exploitation of children knows no borders. But with your support, IJM is working with authorities to bring children to safety, hold traffickers and sex offenders to account, and protect children from abuse.

Find out more about IJM’s work to stop online sexual exploitation of children.