Consultant, Baseline Study of Performance and Confidence in Malaysia

Terms of Reference and Request for Proposals:

Who We Are

International Justice Mission (IJM) is a global organization that protects the poor from violence throughout the developing world. IJM partners with local authorities to rescue victims of violence, bring criminals to justice, restore survivors, and strengthen justice systems. International Justice Mission (IJM) combats forced labor/labor trafficking, sex trafficking, and gender-based violence, working through 24 programs across South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America by strengthening the capacities of the criminal justice system to deal with these forms of violence.

Project Background

IJM Malaysia established operations in late 2020 to combat forced labor and human trafficking in various sectors. The goal of IJM’s forced labor program is to achieve ‘Effective justice systems in Malaysia to protect 3.4 M migrants and vulnerable workers from forced labor’. IJM defines protection as the array of benefits that accrue to people in poverty through a strengthened justice system. This is assessed through four key domains of change: prevalence of crime, reliance of vulnerable people on the justice system, performance of the justice system, and confidence of stakeholders. IJM’s theory of change is that people are protected from violence when the justice system acts as a deterrent to perpetrators (prevalence of the crime reduces); is attractive to victims to report crimes and pursue cases (victim reliance increases); performs well on those cases (performance of the public justice system improves); and has the confidence of the key stakeholders (stakeholder confidence increases). These four are collectively called protection domains. IJM’s local team of law enforcement, legal, aftercare, case management, and administration professionals are proactively developing relationships and credibility with key agencies of the Malaysian government and local NGOs to strengthen the Malaysian government's justice, worker protection and victim support systems. Part of IJM Malaysia’s strategy is to do cross-border collaborative casework with key stakeholders in Malaysia and source countries.

This is a home-based position with travels to these locations in Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Johor, Selangor, Kedah, Sabah & Sarawak.

Scope and Objectives

A key IJM standard is to measure the baseline of each protection domain which will provide the reference point for IJM’s program strategy and implementation in Malaysia, and future measurement efforts. The objective of this study is to provide baseline data for two domains (performance and confidence) which will inform the strategic priorities of IJM in Malaysia. Ethical considerations will be upheld throughout this study according to IJM’s Code of Ethics. The Malaysia Baseline study for Performance and Confidence has 4 (four) specific objectives as below:

• To define the initial reference point on the performance of the Public Justice System (PJS) on cases of FLS in Malaysia based on IJM’s standardized indicators and related themes.
• To identify factors influencing PJS performance and provide recommendations for areas of improvement.
• To comprehensively outline the present operational framework and dynamics of the PJS in Malaysia in its efforts to manage forced labor and trafficking cases.
• To assess the level of confidence of key stakeholders in the PJS in Malaysia and gather recommendations to protect migrant workers in Malaysia from forced labor slavery

Key Responsibilities
Key responsibilities and areas of work are as follows:

1. Finalize the design and the data collection plan, including methodology, sampling frame and target group of participants in collaboration with the RSC, then submit an inception report.
2. Develop study protocol, with an analysis plan, and develop ethical committee application
3. Develop and finalize detailed baseline data collection instruments, including qualitative ones.
4. Develop training plan and train data collectors
5. Oversee data collection and conduct regular data quality assurance.
6. Analyze the data collected and draw out key findings.
7. Produce a draft report based on a structure agreed with the RSC and present findings to the teams.
8. Finalize the baseline report based on consultation with the RSC.
9. Disseminate baseline with the relevant selected external stakeholders (if needed).

The consultant(s)/firm will work under the overall management of the FLS Hub MERL team with support from the Country team and Global Measurement Team to design and implement the data collection and analysis activity on time and within budget. This activity will be undertaken in accordance with IJM’s s safeguarding policy, and other applicable guidelines.

Expected Outputs
Based on above-mentioned study objectives, the consultant(s) are expected to address the following research questions listed as below:

Research questions:

1. How effective is the Public Justice System’s (PJS) performance in responding to forced labor slavery and trafficking in Malaysia?
2. What is the legal framework and processes for managing forced labor and trafficking cases in Malaysia?
3. What is the level of confidence of key stakeholders in the ability of the Public Justice System’s (PJS) to protect migrant workers from forced labor slavery in Malaysia?

Deliverables & Timeline

The consultancy is expected to be completed by August 2025.

A tentative timeline is as follows:

Qualifications & Experience
The consultant(s)/firm must meet the following requirements:

• Master's degree Preferrable PhDs in Statistics (for the Team Lead), and master's degree on Demography/Population Studies, or relevant fields. (for Team Members)
• Experience on conducting research, baseline or final evaluation on similar topics will be an advantage.
• Expertise on data collection process and management of both quantitative and qualitative methods.
• Experience on human trafficking and justice system, especially in the Malaysia and Southeast Asia context is essential.
• Strong institutional networking will be an advantage.
• Proficiency in spoken and written Bahasa Malaysia would be an advantage.

Request for Proposal Timeline & Application Process

Qualified candidates or candidate teams must submit their application on or before 23:59 on Tuesday, 30th September 2024 (GMT+8). The application should contain:

• Cover letter explaining qualifications, experience, and competence of the consultant or each consultancy team member for this baseline study.
• Technical proposal with initial proposed methodology and work plan (which will be discussed and finalized between IJM and the selected consultant(s)/firm, no more than five pages).
• Résumé package, containing résumé for all team members if applying as a team/firm (no more than four pages per résumé).
• Financial proposal, which should show the breakdown of the study cost, including the consultant’s rate, travel, per diems, interpretation, report proofreading and design, and any other possible costs.

Questions and completed applications should be submitted in PDF format with “Malaysia Performance and Confidence Study” – [Last Name/First Name]” in the subject line and emailed to hnahampun@ijm.org and malaysia@ijm.org.

IJM holds strict safeguarding principles and a zero tolerance to violations of the Safeguarding Policy, Protection against Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment Policy, and Code of Ethics. Candidate selection is based on technical competence, recruitment, selection and hiring criteria subject to assessing the candidates value congruence and thorough background, police clearance, and reference check processes. IJM requires a background check, police clearance and thorough review of references with an employment offer and/or employment contract.