ARAT 2026 | Count Us In | Regional Learning
Aiswarya Ananthapadmanabhan and Nisha Mehroon reflect on what the Asia Region Anti-Trafficking Conference (ARAT) 2026 reinforced about survivor leadership, knowledge, collaboration and the future of ecosystem building.
The last quarter has been a significant one for Sanjog. From bringing together organisations across eight states through the Raahat Consortium, to convening conversations on social inclusion and mental health with practitioners, researchers, survivor leaders, lawyers and policymakers, we have increasingly found ourselves creating spaces where different kinds of knowledge can meet. Across these conversations, one thread has become increasingly clear: meaningful systems change happens when lived experience, practice, research and policy begin speaking to one another, rather than operating in parallel.
Our participation at the Asia Region Anti-Trafficking Conference (ARAT) 2026 is a significant highlight in this journey. Looking back, it did not feel like a standalone conference. It felt like another point in Sanjog’s own evolution – from responding to immediate harm, to generating evidence from practice, to increasingly creating spaces where practitioners, institutions, survivor leaders and researchers can collectively shape the future of the field.
The session we co-facilitated on Count Us In: Survivor-Led Community Action Research on Inclusion and Psychosocial Wellbeing was never intended to be another presentation of research findings. Instead, it became an opportunity to share an approach that sits at the heart of Sanjog’s work: creating the conditions through which people with lived experience become producers of knowledge, contributors to public conversations and leaders shaping systems from within.
Rather than speaking for the survivor researchers, we chose to speak about the institutional work required to make survivor-led research possible – the relationships, trust, ethics, accompaniment and organisational choices that allow knowledge to emerge differently. What followed became one of the most meaningful conversations we have had this year.
1. We weren’t presenting a methodology. We were inviting a different way of thinking.
Before ARAT, one decision shaped everything about how we approached the session.
Count Us In is not simply Sanjog’s research. It is knowledge created by survivor researchers and a journey we are co-steering with the Integrated Leadership Forum Against Trafficking (ILFAT), the survivor-led leadership platform spanning multiple states in India. That distinction mattered deeply to us because it reflects the very premise of the work: those who generate knowledge should also shape how it enters public conversations.
The findings belong most meaningfully in the voices of the survivor researchers themselves. While ILFAT representatives were part of the room and generously shared their experiences during the discussion that followed, we consciously chose not to make this another presentation of research findings on their behalf.
Instead, we focused on the work Sanjog had undertaken to make survivor-led research possible. We spoke about designing processes where trust precedes timelines, where accompaniment is built into research, and where lived experience is recognised as expertise rather than consultation. More than discussing what the research found, we explored how organisations can create the conditions for people to move from respondents to researchers, interpreters of evidence and contributors to shaping programmes, policy and practice.
That shift transformed the conversation. Participants began asking questions on organisational experience and practice rather than technical methodology: How do institutions know when they’re genuinely sharing power? What changes when expertise is redistributed? And what does it take to build rigorous research without compromising emotional safety?
For us, those questions reaffirmed something increasingly central to Sanjog’s journey: institutions shape change not only through what they deliver, but through the conditions they create for others to lead.
2. We saw expertise being redefined in real time.
One moment stayed with us throughout the conference. Several participants asked whether they could hear directly from the survivor researchers themselves. It seemed like a simple question, but it reflected something much deeper.
For years, many conversations in our sector have focused on including survivors within existing processes. Increasingly, the conversation is shifting towards recognising survivors as knowledge holders whose insights shape research, programmes and policy. When survivors become researchers, they notice forms of exclusion hidden within everyday interactions, ask questions others might not think to ask, and recognise barriers that rarely appear in official datasets.
ARAT suggested that this shift – from participation towards expertise – is gaining momentum across different country contexts.
3. We found ourselves connecting different parts of the ecosystem.
One of the strongest takeaways from ARAT was recognising that Sanjog’s role extended beyond presenting a session. We found ourselves doing something increasingly familiar across our work: connecting conversations that might otherwise remain separate.
Our exchanges with researchers from the University of Bath, King’s College London and Saint Louis University expanded discussions on survivor-led research into broader questions around ethical AI, knowledge management, scam-compound trafficking and how evidence can emerge from frontline practice rather than sitting outside it. Those exchanges reminded us that research becomes most valuable when it remains accountable to communities while informing wider systems conversations.
Our conversations with civil society organisations and peer learning partners like Freedom Story, Every Daughter Matters, Atlas Free and She Is Safe kept returning to shared questions around survivor leadership, prevention, livelihoods, trauma-informed practice and community resilience. Rather than discussing replication, these exchanges focused on reciprocal learning and how organisations working in different contexts can strengthen one another’s approaches while remaining rooted in local realities.
Equally valuable were conversations with philanthropic organisations and funding intermediaries, including the Asia Community Foundation and Rotary Action Group Against Slavery, where discussions moved beyond funding towards how philanthropy can better recognise survivor leadership, systems-strengthening work and long-term institutional resilience as essential investments. These conversations reinforced that funding ecosystems are strengthened when they invest not only in programmes, but also in the relationships and capacities that sustain change over time.
Finally, conversations with government and regional stakeholders reinforced how questions around safe migration, institutional strengthening and regional cooperation increasingly extend beyond national boundaries. They reminded us that many of the challenges shaping South Asia require conversations that connect institutions across geographies rather than remaining confined within individual countries.
Taken together, these weren’t simply networking conversations. They became reminders that stronger ecosystems emerge when researchers, practitioners, survivor leaders, funders and public institutions remain in conversation with one another, each contributing a different piece of the wider architecture for change.
4. We saw ideas begin to travel across the ecosystem.
Looking back, one pattern became increasingly visible.
Questions raised during our session resurfaced in conversations on ethical AI. Discussions on survivor-led research connected with debates on prevention, livelihoods and community resilience. Conversations about justice linked naturally with philanthropy, accountability and institutional strengthening.
In many ways, ARAT demonstrated what Sanjog has increasingly been practising across its own work: learning becomes most valuable when it moves. Ideas developed through community practice begin informing research. Research strengthens institutional conversations. Philanthropic discussions become opportunities to rethink systems. And conversations that begin in one country spark possibilities in another.
That reminded us that evidence does more than document reality. It creates relationships. And when those relationships grow, knowledge begins functioning as a public good rather than remaining confined within individual organisations.
5. Mental health has become part of systems conversations.
It was striking how often psychosocial wellbeing surfaced throughout ARAT—not as a standalone intervention or an afterthought, but as something deeply connected to justice, inclusion, leadership and community. That resonated strongly with conversations Sanjog has been facilitating through Count Us In and our recent dialogues on social inclusion and mental health, where the focus has increasingly shifted from individual coping towards the conditions that shape wellbeing itself.
It felt encouraging to see similar conversations emerging across the region.
6. Regional conversations create possibilities that local work alone cannot.
One of ARAT’s greatest strengths was bringing together people working in very different contexts who were asking remarkably similar questions. How do we build survivor leadership? How do we strengthen accountability? How do we generate evidence that changes systems rather than simply describing them?
The legal systems differed. The organisational models differed. The funding landscapes differed. The questions increasingly converged. That kind of convergence matters because it allows ideas developed in one context to inform another without requiring identical realities.
7. We returned more convinced about Sanjog’s evolving role.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway wasn’t about what happened during ARAT. It was about what it clarified afterwards.
Looking back over the last quarter – from Raahat’s multi-state collaborations to mental health dialogues and ARAT – we realised these are not isolated engagements. Together, they reflect an evolving role that Sanjog is increasingly inhabiting: practitioner, knowledge producer, convener and ecosystem builder. There is, however, another side to this evolution that is less visible. As our role expands, so does the complexity of holding multiple priorities, relationships and expectations. Building an ecosystem is rarely linear; it requires constant recalibration, patience and staying grounded as the context changes.
Sometimes that means accompanying survivors through justice systems. Sometimes it means generating evidence from practice. Sometimes it means convening lawyers, researchers, policymakers and community leaders. Increasingly, it also means designing collaborative platforms where knowledge, leadership and relationships can move across organisations and geographies—creating the conditions for collective action rather than carrying solutions from one place to another. It also reminded us that meaningful ecosystem work involves navigating uncertainty, complexity and continuing to learn along the way.
The conversation continues
ARAT did not feel like the end of a conference. It felt like the beginning of a wider regional conversation.
Building on those conversations, we are excited to contribute to more regional roundtables, cross-border learning dialogues and communities of practice where survivor leaders, practitioners, researchers, technologists, funders and institutions can continue exploring questions around knowledge production, psychosocial wellbeing, ethical practice and systems change.
Because if Count Us In asks what becomes possible when survivors become researchers, ARAT expanded that question even further. What becomes possible when organisations become co-learners, connectors and co-builders of stronger ecosystems?
That feels like the next conversation worth building together.
Join the conversation
ARAT did not feel like the end of a conference. It felt like the beginning of a wider regional conversation.
Since then, those conversations have continued through regional exchanges, peer-learning discussions and growing interest from practitioners, researchers, survivor leaders and organisations across the region. They have reinforced our belief that the strongest ecosystems are built when ideas continue moving long after a conference ends.
As Sanjog dedicates October to a month-long focus on mental health, with World Mental Health Day on 10 October serving as a moment to deepen and broaden the conversation, we’re creating the space we deliberately held open at ARAT
Hear the research where it belongs
Over the coming weeks, we’ll be hosting dedicated Count Us In sessions where survivor researchers and ILFAT leaders will share the research findings, community experiences and reflections in their own voices- alongside conversations on survivor leadership, psychosocial wellbeing and community-led research.
Help shape what’s next
The interest that emerged through ARAT has shown us that there is a growing appetite for regional learning spaces that connect lived experience, practice, research and systems change.
If you’d like to join future Count Us In webinars, participate in regional roundtables and cross-border learning dialogues, or stay connected to this growing community of practice, we’d love to continue the conversation.
Register your interest and help shape the next chapter of survivor-led learning and regional ecosystem building.
Scan the QR code or register here. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1J395r1D4MrDWgIlpyoHuSEKrxm07dmAJd3rYIyygAw4/edit
