phd on human trafficking

UCL Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science

Human Trafficking, Smuggling and Exploitation Research Group

Our focus with this research group is on building a stronger and more nuanced evidence-base on human trafficking, smuggling and exploitation in their various forms (including what is increasingly referred to as ‘modern slavery’). These are broad umbrella terms that encompass a wide variety of complex and often contested areas. As such, we recognise the need for nuance and specificity in analyses and interventions. We are particularly interested in applied research that advances understanding and supports more informed, effective and ethical responses. We work across qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods research, depending on a particular project’s aims, scope and research questions. We have a strong track record for high-quality research that is rigorous, context-sensitive, and informed by solid domain understanding. We have worked with various organisations across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. Our research has been influential in informing policy, practice and public debate, including through challenging myths and misinformation. The real-world impact of our research has been recognised through a world-leading impact case study in the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021). If you have any questions about this research group or would like to get in touch about a potential collaboration, please contact the group lead Dr Ella Cockbain ( [email protected] ).

We have a strong track record in securing funding for research in this space, with £2.2 million in research funding since 2013 for projects related to human trafficking and exploitation in various forms, including two major fellowships (a Wellcome Early Career Fellowship and an ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellowship). A selection of current and past projects is included below. In addition to these funded projects, we have also supported many students to secure competitive PhD scholarships.

Current Projects

• Examining the social, spatial and temporal systems behind human trafficking (Principal Investigator Dr Ella Cockbain, 2019-24) : Funded under the ESRC’s Transnational Organised Crime call, this £456,000 project investigates the structure of trafficking networks and spatial and temporal patterns in identified and suspected trafficking in the UK. The project takes a largely quantitative approach, closely informed by extensive domain knowledge and sensitive to contextual nuance. It draws extensively on sensitive data from the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) and the Modern Slavery Helpline, kindly provided by project partners the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Unseen. A key focus for the grant is also about encouraging more nuanced, evidence-informed policy and practice in the anti-trafficking space. The team for this grant includes co-investigators Professor Kate Bowers, Dr Lisa Tompson, Dr Aiden Sidebottom and Dr Matt Ashby, and Research Assistant Dr Donia Khanegi (all UCL Security and Crime Science). More information on this project available here
• Precarious work and labour market abuses (co-Principal Investigators Dr Ella Cockbain and Dr Chris Pósch, 2022-24) : Co-funded by the ESRC and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), this £742,000 project was commissioned by the Director of Labour Market Enforcement to assess the scale and nature of labour market non-compliance in the UK. This mixed-methods study focuses specifically on the experiences of people in precarious work. The cornerstone is a large-scale representative survey, administered by Kantar as an associated study to the Understanding Society survey. Those results will inform complementary in-depth interviews with precarious workers, and focus groups with workers and employers. The team includes co-investigators Dr Sam Scott (University of Gloucestershire), Professor Ben Bradford (UCL Security and Crime Science) and Professor Virginia Mantouvalou (UCL Laws), and Research Assistant Jack Beadsworth (PhD candidate at UCL Laws), with support from leading NGO FLEX (Focus on Labour Exploitation). For more information, please see this blogpost or the project webpage .
• Wellcome Early Career Fellowship (Principal Investigator Dr Alys McAlpine, 2022-27) : This prestigious five year fellowship (£610,000) was awarded to Dr McAlpine to investigate ways of strengthening violence prevention through innovative and interdisciplinary intervention modelling. Taking human trafficking as the focus, this project brings together public health, crime science and complexity science to advance violence prevention research. The fellowship is co-hosted by the UCL Institute for Global Health (IGH) and UCL Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science. More information on the project is available here .
• Exploring policing practices in London in relation to sex work (Principal Investigator Dr Jyoti Belur, 2022-23) : Funded by the Metropolitan Police Service (£50,000 excl. VAT), this project was commissioned to improve understanding of how the MPS currently polices in relation to sex work, identifying tensions, challenges, areas of good and bad practice, and recommendations for change. The project involves in-depth interviews with both policing and non-policing stakeholders, including sex worker-led organisations. While we explicitly do not conceptualise sex work as ‘exploitation’ in and of itself, the overlap in policing of sex work and of human trafficking/’modern slavery’ brings this project into the research group’s scope. The research team includes co-investigator Dr Ella Cockbain, and Research Assistant Michele Bal (both UCL Security and Crime Science).

Past Projects

Examples of key past projects iclude:

• An ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellowship for research into human trafficking for labour exploitation (Principal Investigator Dr Ella Cockbain, Mentor Prof Kate Bowers, 2014-18). This £204,000 fellowship drew extensively on both qualitative and quantitative data from the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), provided by the National Crime Agency. It also included a systematic review of the evidence-base on labour trafficking.
• An initial analysis of precarious work in the UK , using data from the Understanding Society survey (Principal Investigator Dr Chris Pósch, 2019-20). Commissioned by the Director of Labour Market Enforcement (DLME) and funded by BEIS at £10,000 excl. VAT.
• A scoping study of how best to measure the scale and nature of labour market non-compliance in the UK (Principal Investigator Dr Ella Cockbain, 2018-19). Commissioned by the Director of Labour Market Enforcement (DLME) and funded by BEIS at £25,000 excl. VAT.
• A mixed-methods study into the sexual exploitation of boys and young men in the UK (Principal Investigator Dr Carol McNaughton-Nicholls, 2013-14). Funded by the Nuffield Foundation (£97,000), this study was a collaboration between NatCen Social Research, UCL and Barnardo’s. The UCL team (led by Dr Ella Cockbain) was responsible for a rapid evidence assessment and large-scale quantitative analysis of gendered differences in child sexual exploitation (CSE).

We have a wide range of researchers working in this space, with complementary skills and experience. Brief biographies are provided below.

• Dr Ella Cockbain (research group lead) : Ella is an Associate Professor in Security and Crime Science at UCL, and a visiting research fellow at Leiden University. Her research focuses primarily on human trafficking, child sexual exploitation, and labour market abuses. She is committed to nuanced, evidence-informed and context-sensitive responses to these complex social phenomena, and has done a lot of work around challenging misconceptions and misinformation. She is the former co-chair of the UK’s Modern Slavery Strategy and Implementation Group on prevention, and a current member. A previous ‘Future Research Leaders’ fellow of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Ella currently leads two major studies: one focusing on human trafficking (ESRC-funded), the other on labour market abuses (with co-lead Chris Pósch, funded by the ESRC and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy). She supervises numerous PhDs relating to human trafficking, smuggling and exploitation, and is leading the new teaching module on these topics.
• Dr Matt Ashby : Matt is a Lecturer in Crime Science. His research focuses on crime analysis, how crime concentrates in time and space, and how police can use data to solve crime problems. Matt’s research has been funded by organisations including the College of Policing and UK Home Office. Matt is a former police officer, has a PhD in Crime Science and is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He teaches crime mapping and data analysis, as well as training police practitioners on problem solving. Matt has worked on research with Barnardo’s into child sexual exploitation (funded by the Nuffield Foundation) and is currently a co-investigator on a major ESRC-funded grant on human trafficking, for which he leads on the analysis of data from the UK’s NRM (National Referral Mechanism) system.
• Dr Jyoti Belur : Jyoti is an Associate Professor in Policing at the UCL Department of Security and Crime Science. She qualified in Economics at the University of Mumbai, and worked there as a lecturer before serving as a senior officer in the Indian Police Service. She has undertaken research for the UK Home Office, College of Policing, ESRC and the Metropolitan Police Service, and as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow. She is the programme convenor for the BSc in Professional Policing. She is currently a member of the London Policing Ethics Panel and the HMICFRS Academic Reference Group. A qualitative research methods expert, Jyoti’s research interests include policing, police training and education, evaluations, and violence against women and children. She is currently supervising PhD and Masters research projects on the policing response to human trafficking, and leading research on London policing responses to sex work and trafficking of adults for sexual exploitation.
• Professor Ben Bradford : Ben is Professor of Global City Policing at UCL and Director of the Centre for Global City Policing. His research concentrates in particular on questions of trust, legitimacy, cooperation and compliance in justice settings. He also has interests in aspects of ‘street-level’ police practice, the use of new technologies in policing, the ethics of policing, and perhaps above all the effect of police activity on those who experience it. He has significant experience of the use of surveys and experimental methods in these areas of research, and has worked extensively with police organisations across the UK, as well as a wide range of other governmental and non-governmental actors. He is currently a co-investigator on a major grant assessing the scale and nature of labour-market non-compliance affecting precarious workers in the UK, commissioned by the Director of Labour Market Enforcement and building on earlier UCL-led projects in this space.

Professor Kate Bowers : Kate is the Head of Department of UCL Security and Crime Science and Director of the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science. Kate’s research focuses on using data analytics and multi-disciplinary techniques to develop strategies for the prevention and detection of crime. Her particular interests lie in using analysis to predict crime patterns and developing the evidence base on what works to reduce crime. She has worked on several research projects related to human trafficking, including as a mentor on Ella Cockbain’s past ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellowship on labour trafficking, and as a co-investigator and the deputy director on the current ESRC grant on human trafficking.

Dr Donia Khanegi : Donia has an academic background in forensic and crime science, with research interests including organised crime, drug trafficking, drug policy, human trafficking, and behaviour change. Having recently completed her PhD on the negative societal impacts of the illicit drug trade and drug related behaviour change, Donia now works as a research fellow at the JDI. She is currently working on a major ESRC-funded human trafficking grant, applying social network analysis to investigate the structure and organisation of labour trafficking networks in the UK.

Dr Alys McAlpine : Alys is a  Wellcome Trust Fellow  (2022-2027) researching human trafficking prevention in the UK. Her background is in public health approaches to violence prevention. In 2021, she completed an ESRC-funded PhD at the  Gender, Violence and Health Center  (GVHC) at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), in collaboration with  Freedom Fund . Her thesis applied social network analysis and agent-based modelling to explore social and intermediary networks facilitating labour migration in the Myanmar-Thailand corridor. Building on this work, she and colleagues received an ESRC methods innovation grant (2021-2022) to further explore the use of complex system modelling for violence prevention intervention development. Her current research is exploring how to integrate public health and crime science approaches to prevent human trafficking and respond to the mental health needs of trafficking survivors in the UK.

Dr Krisztián Pósch : Chris is a Lecturer in Crime Science at the Department of Security and Crime Science at UCL, and a visiting research fellow at the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics. He has a background in psychology, research methods, and statistics. His methodological interest lies in employing innovative causal inference techniques and survey methods to address real-world problems. Much of his work focuses on public perception of the police and the impact of police practices and interventions. Currently, Chris is the work package leader of the quantitative branch of the TASERD project (‘An independent research programme on the causes of ethnic/racial disparities in the police use of Taser’) funded by the College of Policing, the lead evaluator for the ‘Awareness Academy’ programme funded by the Metropolitan Police, and the co-lead with Ella Cockbain of the ‘Assessment of the Scale and Nature of Labour Market Non-compliance in the UK’ funded by the ESRC and BEIS.

Dr Aiden Sidebottom : Aiden Sidebottom is an Associate Professor in the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science at University College London. His main research interests are problem-oriented policing, crime analysis and crime prevention. Aiden is a m ember of the academic advisory board for  Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services  and a judge for the  Goldstein Award for excellence in problem-oriented policing.   Aiden  is a co-investigator on the current ESRC-funded project on human trafficking, where he leads on the engagement and impact strand. He has also worked extensively on the issue of missing children, which intersects with risks of exploitation.

Dr Lisa Tompson : Lisa is a Senior Lecturer at the New Zealand Institute for Security and Crime Science and an honorary Research Fellow at UCL’s Department of Security and Crime Science, where she used to work. Lisa’s research interests coalesce around generating evidence to help practitioners and policy-makers to prevent crime. Her research has been commissioned by a range of UK agencies, such as the Home Office, Environment Agency, Regional Government Offices and Local Authorities, as well as Police Forces and Local Authorities. Lisa takes a data science approach to problem-solving and has developed methods for analysing several emerging and hidden crime types. She is a co-investigator on the current ESRC-funded trafficking project, leading on analysis of data from the UK’s Modern Slavery Helpline.

There are numerous doctoral researchers working at UCL Security and Crime Science on PhD research into various aspects of human trafficking, smuggling, exploitation and/or neighbouring issues, in the UK and internationally. They are an important part of our vibrant research community and we have regular research group meetings (particular thanks go to Francesca Costi and David Suber for their important contributions to setting up this group and organising these sessions). Below you can find brief summaries of current doctoral research projects (contact details included with consent). Please do get in touch if you are interested in doing a PhD with us at UCL Security and Crime Science.

Alexandre Bish

PhD supervisors : Dr Ella Cockbain and Professor Her v é Borrion, both UCL Security and Crime Science

Working title : Modelling migrant-smuggling and trafficking dynamics on the Central Mediterranean route to Europe.

Research focus : My PhD research looks at scripting and modelling migrant smuggling dynamics on the central Mediterranean route to Europe with a focus on Libya and Niger. The main methods used include crime scripting, social network analysis and statistical analysis. Data is drawn from interviews with migrants, migrant smugglers, and key informant interviews. This research is funded by an EPSRC studentship (via the SECReT doctoral training centre).

Email: [email protected]

Kane Brooks

PhD supervisors : Dr Sanaz Zolghadriha and Professor Kate Bowers, both UCL Security and Crime Science

Working title : The role of social media intelligence in organised crime investigations involving child criminal exploitation.

Research focus : This project examines evidential opportunities innate to social media usage by young persons engaged in organised criminal conduct. The phenomenon of county line gangs has received significant media attention. However, the criminal investigation techniques deployed by practitioners have undergone less public scrutiny. Social media intelligence, also known as internet intelligence investigations (III), is the operational tactic used by law enforcement organisations to collect evidence from suspects and victims in a wide range of criminal investigations. This is a crucial intelligence development tool for organised crime investigations involving child criminal exploitation (CCE).

Jonathan Camilleri

PhD supervisors : Dr Ella Cockbain and Dr Jyoti Belur, both UCL Security and Crime Science 

Working title : Investigating agency, choice and exploitation in sex work in Malta through the perspective of sex working and non-sex working stakeholders. 

Research focus : This Malta-based project (i) probes local non-sex working stakeholders’ perceptions on agency, choice and exploitation in sex work, (ii) and examines these perceptions against primary data on how people in sex work navigate complex choices across a spectrum of agency and oppression, and within the context of individual, social, environmental and systemic factors. Primary data is collected via in-depth interviews with a range of people with lived experience of sex work in Malta, and with non-sex working stakeholders and practitioners. This research is funded by the Tertiary Education Scholarships Scheme (Malta).

Email :   [email protected]  

Francesca Costi

PhD supervisors : Professor Kate Bowers and Dr Sanaz Zolghadriha, both UCL Security and Crime Science

Working title : Studying crime during the pandemic: how technology has changed the human trafficking business structure in the UK.

Research focus : My PhD research looks at the changes in human trafficking during the Covid-19 pandemic and the adaptability of human trafficking illicit crime enterprise to the new era of digitalisation. This project is focused on studying and analysing the modus operandi that offenders have adopted in using adult website services (AWS) in sexual exploitation and trafficking reaching a new level of cyber-sophistication in their business model. This research is funded by a Dawes-UCL SECReT scholarship, and is part of the Dawes Centre for Future Crime.

Email : [email protected]

Clara Cotroneo

PhD supervisors : Professor Joachim Koops (Leiden University, Institute of Security and Global Affairs) and Dr Ella Cockbain (UCL Security and Crime Science)

Working title : Anti-trafficking policies and practices in Europe

Research focus : my research investigates and examines the EU approach to trafficking in human beings in times of crisis. In particular, I am interested in identifying inconsistencies in policy and field practices, with the objective of flagging up potential risks for victims.

Email : [email protected]

Aliai Eusebi

PhD supervisors : Dr Enrico Mariconti (UCL Security and Crime Science), Dr Marie Vasek (UCL Computer Science) and Dr Ella Cockbain (UCL Security and Crime Science).

Working title : Ethical machine learning for online safety 

Research focus : My PhD research is designed to operationalise the role of ethics in machine learning for online safety. The technical reality of machine learning is permeated by a constellation of ethical concerns related to transparency, fairness, and privacy, among others. I am interested in exploring actions to mitigate black-box, biased, and privacy violating AI when responding to socially-sensitive problems like  online child sexual exploitation. This research is funded by an ESRC studentship. 

Email :  [email protected]

Phirapat Mangkhalasiri

PhD supervisors : Dr Jyoti Belur and Dr Ella Cockbain, both UCL Security and Crime Science

Working title : Human Trafficking for Child Sex Trafficking and Child Labour Trafficking in Thailand: Challenges of Investigation and Prosecution in the Criminal Justice System

Research focus : This study aims to map out how child sex trafficking and child labour trafficking cases are currently being investigated and prosecuted in Thailand, to identify gaps and challenges in the successful investigation and subsequent prosecution of child sex trafficking and child labour trafficking cases, and to draw solutions from the literature and from practitioners to address some of these challenges. This study involves extracting data from police investigative case files, as well as interviews with police officers, prosecutors, judges, social welfare officers and NGOs. This research is funded by a scholarship from the Thai Government.

Email : [email protected]

Mohammad Saheed

Supervisors : Dr Jyoti Belur & Dr Ben Bradford

Working title : Assessing the response of the London Metropolitan Police & Counter Terrorism Policing towards Modern Slavery

Research focus : My research is a qualitative based study. The data will be collected by conducting semi-structured interviews of Police officers working within the Modern Slavery Team of the London Metropolitan Police & officers working within Counter Terrorism Policing. The study aims to identify perceptions and misperceptions related to victim characteristics and examine the impact of current training initiatives.

Valentina Stincanu

Supervisors : Dr Enrico Mariconti, Dr Ella Cockbain and Dr Alina Ristea, all UCL Security and Crime Science

Working title : Mixed Methods Research into the Development of Human Trafficking in Cyberspace – A Country-Specific Case Study Analysis  

Research focus : The PhD is a mixed methods analysis of human trafficking and anti-trafficking activity, with a particular interest in the trafficking-online nexus. It will involve a variety of complementary studies, including quantitative analysis of human trafficking statistical data, social media analysis and fieldwork around governmental and non-governmental organisations’ prevention campaigns, as well as social media analysis into advertisements and opportunities abroad. This research aims to examine the role of cyberspace in facilitating both human trafficking and anti-trafficking activity.

Email : valentina [email protected]  

David Leone Suber

Supervisors : Dr Ella Cockbain and Professor Ben Bradford, both UCL Security and Crime Science

Working title : Assessing the effects and models of border enforcement practices over smuggling and trafficking networks, and migrant vulnerability, in and to Europe.

Research focus : This research looks at how smuggling networks operate and transform, and why are they so resilient in the current environment of global migration flows and border enforcement strategies at Europe’s land borders. This study involves a systematic review of academic literature on border enforcement and human smuggling, as well as fieldwork from the Turkish-Syrian and Turkish-Iranian border, the Balkan route and the UK-France cross-Channel route, involving a multitude of research methods, including interviews with migrants and smugglers, data extraction from social media channels used for smuggling, and law enforcement data. This research is funded by an ESRC studentship.

Email : [email protected]

We have taught MSc students about these issues for many years now, and are delighted to now be offering a new specialist MSc module from 2023/24. Entitled ‘Human trafficking, smuggling and exploitation’, this module will provide MSc students cutting-edge research-led teaching and the ability to explore complex and contested issues in more depth. In addition, each year many Departmental MSc students choose to focus on topics related to human trafficking/smuggling/exploitation for their dissertation research projects. Our staff have supervised a wide variety of MSc projects in this field over the years, including the following examples from students whose MSc research was subsequently published in academic journals:

• Kristen Olver (MSc Countering Organised Crime and Terrorism, 2017/18) MSc research published as: Olver, K. and Cockbain, E. (2021), ‘ County lines’ criminal exploitation in the West Midlands, UK: professionals' perspectives on key legislation, organisational challenges and strengthening responses . Child Abuse Re view.
• Clara Galiano López ( MSc Countering Organised Crime and Terrorism, 2018/19). MSc research published as Galiano López, C., Hunter, J., Davies, T., & Sidebottom, A. (2021), Further evidence on the extent and time course of repeat missing incidents involving children: A research note .   The Police Journal .
• Ada Volodko (MSc Countering Organised Crime and Terrorism, 2017/18). MSc research published as: Volodko, A., Cockbain, E. and Kleinberg, B. (2020), “Spotting the signs” of trafficking recruitment online: exploring the characteristics of advertisements targeted at migrant job-seekers . Trends in Organized Crime.
• Alexander Babuta (MSc Crime Science, 2015/16), MSc research published as Babuta, A. and Sidebottom, A. (2018), Missing children: On the Extent, Patterns, and Correlates of Repeat Disappearances by Young People. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice .

Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute

"The Institute shares in a long history of serving the University's mission of 'Improving the Human Condition.' We are proud to accomplish that mission through research, teaching, and service in ways that bring about emancipation and liberation to our community and the world's most vulnerable people." - Celia Williamson, Ph.D. 

• About trafficking
• Welcome message from dr. celia williamson
• Take the tarta human trafficking survey!

The Mission of the Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute is t o respond to human trafficking and social justice through teaching, research, and collaborative engagement.

With a local to global international reputation, the Institute is a leader in the development and growth of quality and relevant research, a premiere education, innovative and evidence-based programming, and effective community-wide engagement collaboration.

International Human Trafficking and Social Justice Conference

The I.H.T.S.J.C. is the oldest and largest academic conference on human trafficking. Over the past 18 years, we have welcomed thousands of attendees from 50 states and 40 countries. The I.H.T.S.J.C. unites the global community to learn, connect, and collaborate to combat human trafficking and promote social justice.

P.A.T.H. Program

Partners Against Trafficking in Humans (P.A.T.H.) addresses barriers and gaps in direct service coordination for victims of human trafficking and to improve service delivery. P.A.T.H. provides a continuum of care, moving victims to survivors and survivors to become thrivers.

G.A.H.T.S. 

The Global Association of Human Trafficking Scholars (G.A.H.T.S.) responds to human trafficking by moving the knowledge base forward. Our association provides resources and career-advancing opportunities related to human trafficking work. 

F.o.c.u.s. on Runaways Project

F.O.C.U.S. on Runaways Project is a collaborative program to locate and provide services to runaway youth and their families to prevent sex trafficking and drug addiction in Lucas County.

H.S./G.H.Z.

Healthy Start (H.S.) focuses on increasing access to care for women and families and improving birth outcomes for women of childbearing age. Getting Healthy Zone (G.H.Z.) aims to improve infant vitality in seven urban Toledo census tracts through home visitation services and neighborhood improvement.

F.R.E.E. Program

F.R.E.E. Program (Foundation, Readiness, Education, Employment) provides educational scholarships and employment opportunities for local and non-local survivors of human trafficking.

Prevention Curriculum

Human Trafficking Prevention Curriculum is designed to train social service professionals to implement strategies for youth at-risk for human trafficking.

Youth Pages

Youth Pages Toledo is a grant-funded website that provides University of Toledo students and youth in the Lucas County area with local resources and linkages to meet various needs.

D.a.r.t. comprehensive evaluation

The evaluation of the Lucas County Drug Abuse Response Team (D.A.R.T.) consists of providing continuous quality improvement to programming aimed at preventing drug abuse and providing education to the community. 

Program on Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking

Program goals.

The program on child exploitation and human trafficking seeks to identify effective and sustainable strategies to address harm prevention for child and youth at risk of exploitation. In collaboration with partners in the anti-trafficking community, the program conducts thorough analyses of the root causes and risk factors for child exploitation and human trafficking. Our work critically evaluates existing policies as well as promising innovations that address these entrenched problems. Our goal is to conduct cutting-edge research for evidence-based policymaking, advocacy, and training for the next generation of leaders in the field.

Research Projects

We have several ongoing and past projects that examine these issues:

Understanding Prevention: Evidence-Based Cases for Prioritizing Protection

In the face of growing global evidence of an epidemic of violence and abuse against children, recent international fora have emphasized the urgency of a preventative approach to child harm. However, we still know very little about what preventing harm to children looks like in practice. Funders favor time-bound projects with visible outcomes, but prevention is a long-term process and the factors that lead to instances of child harm are complicated. There is little rigorous research in this area, in part because quantifying the counterfactual situation– the child that was never trafficked, or that married after, not before 18 – presents stark challenges for researchers.

In an effort to fill this research gap and following from our previous work on trafficking in India, Harvard FXB has been collaborating with two innovative nonprofits to document and evaluate their separate models of community-based preventative work in areas of high vulnerability for children. The project aims to draw out key lessons for governments, nonprofits and academics as to what targeted prevention projects for child protection entail, with a view to directing further resources and attention to such approaches. Published in spring 2019, the first of these evidence-based cases for prioritizing prevention studies the work of children’s rights nonprofit Aangan Trust in Konia, a peri-urban slum area in Varanasi, a large city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. A brief overview of the report can be found here , along with links to the executive summary and the full report .

Tackling the Trafficking of Children for Forced Labor in India

In 2014-2015 Harvard FXB Center launched Is This Protection, a project designed to critically evaluate the Indian Government’s system for “rescue and reintegration” of the thousands of children trafficked every year for exploitative labor in the country. An analysis of the existing legal and policy framework was compared with the results of a detailed qualitative survey, conducted with 49 experts from government and civil society in the source state of Bihar, the transit state of Delhi and the destination state of Rajasthan.

The published report reveals startling inconsistencies between policy commitments and on-the-ground realities. Children are simply removed from workplaces and returned to where they came from, leaving them “exposed to the same structural vulnerabilities that led to their being originally trafficked, with the predictable outcome that many of them are retrafficked.”

Following the report’s release Harvard FXB held seminars in Delhi, Patna and Jaipur to convene prominent anti-trafficking experts from relevant government ministries, police, nonprofits and academia. The meetings disseminated the report’s findings and recommendations and fostered discussion and collaboration among key stakeholders, geared to improving current practice.

Evaluating Strategies for the Eradication of Forced and Bonded Labor

From 2011-2014, FXB conducted the first independent study to examine the impact of a multifaceted, community-based intervention on eradication of forced and bonded labor. The resulting report, When We Raise Our Voice: The Challenge of Eradicating Labor Exploitation , analyzes the efforts of Manav Sansadhan Evam Mahila Vikas Sansthan (MSEMVS), a local Indian NGO dedicated to the elimination of exploitative labor practices within low caste, remote communities in Uttar Pradesh. The study sought to determine whether forced and bonded labor had been eradicated in target villages, and measure the effect the intervention had on a wide range of relevant social and economic factors.

The study clearly established that MSEMVS has had a dramatic impact on improving the lives of affected individuals and households, for example in reducing indebtedness, improving participation in government job programs and increasing community empowerment. However, results presented a nuanced and changing picture in relation to the exploitative labor conditions and challenging socioeconomic circumstances of the studied communities. For example, results were inconclusive on the impact of the program on child marriage and child labor incidence. The overall results are robust and encouraging, and they also point to several remaining methodological and substantive questions. More in depth research is required on the factors that contribute to community-based change in anti-exploitation programs.

Children on the Move Project

The term “trafficking” refers to a complex set of interrelated activities that encompass migration and exploitation. The Children on the Move project interrogates how this discrete legal category fails to encompass the diverse and intersecting realities of children who migrate and children who work, with a view to informing more effective and rights-respecting policy.

Photo: Angela Duger/Harvard FXB

Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice

Human trafficking.

This project explores contemporary forms of human bondage and engages in public programming around this issue.

• Work of the Center
• Research Clusters

View the Human Trafficking Research Cluster brochure

Directed by Manning Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies, Dr. Elena Shih, the Human Trafficking Research Cluster (HTRC) was established at the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice in 2015. HTRC aims to foster collaborative critical inquiry into the study of human trafficking, as well as to cultivate an intersectional framework that acknowledges the ways in which race, class, gender, nation, and sexual forms of power and inequality govern contemporary anti-trafficking efforts. Since its inception the HTRC has supported undergraduate and graduate research while simultaneously maintaining community partnerships with Providence-based and global migrant and sex worker rights organizations. These relationships have produced research and policy documents, and have elevated public discussions on the ethics of human trafficking studies, the role of local and international governmental policy, and have explored innovative solutions to reporting and stopping labor abuse. Dr. Shih is the recipient of the 2020 Howard R. Swearer Engaged Faculty Award for Research.

Since 2015, the HTRC has prioritized engaged scholarship with COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) RI, the state’s only sex worker rights organization. Together, they co-led a community based research team that has investigated sex workers rights amidst a changing climate of sexual labor politics. In 2019, COYOTE RI and HTRC were successful in introducing a historic Rhode Island House Bill to study the impact of the 2009 decriminalization of indoor prostitution in the state.

Recent News

2023 annual report update on human trafficking research cluster, worker organising can counter labour abuse in the global south, an update from the human trafficking research cluster, current and past affiliated staff, researchers, and fellows include, 2020-2021 affiliated staff, karen t. romer undergraduate teaching and research awards (utras).

• 2018, Arie Davey
• 2017, Dayana Tavarez
• 2016, Tau Lee Envisioning Intersectional Sex Trafficking Prevention Frameworks for LGBTQ Youth     
• 2015, Eve Woldemikael From Slavery to Human Trafficking: The Politics of Forced Labor in Brazil

Stanford University

Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is housed in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Human Trafficking

Researchers.

In 2011, the Program on Human Rights (PHR) launched its research initiative on human trafficking to address the main challenges and generate new knowledge on this issue of international concern. Working in collaboration with Stanford faculty and students, this project builds on research underway across the university to create a forum on human trafficking. The goal is to produce collaborative research and policy recommendations to better address the multiple dimensions of human trafficking.

"This research collaborative will shift the agenda on human trafficking from one that has adopted a criminal-legal paradigm to one that focuses on all the pre-conditions for trafficking," said Helen Stacy , director of the Program on Human Rights. "Interdisciplinary tools drawing on law, health, gender, and psychology will introduce an integrated approach to this critical area of study."

Human trafficking is a global phenomenon that each year forces millions into lives as prostitutes, laborers, child soldiers, and domestic servants. Traffickers prey on the weak and vulnerable, targeting young victims with promises of a better life. This modern form of slavery impacts every continent and type of economy, while the industry continues to grow with global profits reaching nearly $32 billion annually. In spite of these mounting figures, prosecution and conviction rates are not increasing relative to the surge in these crimes. According to the U.S. State Department, for every 800 people trafficked in 2006, only one person was convicted.

As the size and scope of human trafficking increase, less is known about the root causes of human trafficking on this new scale. A better understanding of the conditions that give rise to human trafficking – income inequality, rural poor populations, cultural norms, and gender disparities – will bring the international community closer to curbing the growth of this criminal industry. Understanding how multi-lateral institutions – from the World Bank to the United Nations – may unwittingly encourage the industry will lead to more informed policies for its eradication.

Publications

National human trafficking awareness day - student forum, panel discussion about proposition 35 (the case act) on human trafficking in california.

• Helen Stacy ,
• Lt. John Vanek ,
• Nancy O'Mally ,
• Cindy Liou ,
• Sgt. Holly Joshi ,
• Kathleen Kim

Human Trafficking and Law Enforcement: Implementing a victim-based approach

Humanitarism to human rights.

• Davide Rodogno ,
• Barbara Metzger ,
• Keith David Watenpaugh ,
• J. P. Daughton ,
• Joel Beinin ,
• Priya Satia

Human Trafficking and Technology Focus Group

• Margaret Hagan

Program on Human Rights Workshop on Human Trafficking

• David Batstone ,
• Congresswoman Jackie Speier

A Critique of Repressive Approaches to Combat Human Trafficking

• Alison Brysk ,
• Dr. Mohammed Mattar ,
• Helen Stacy

Imperfections of the Current Anti-trafficking Model

• Justin Dillon ,

Stanford Human Trafficking Data Lab

Main navigation.

Human trafficking for forced labor or sexual exploitation poses unique challenges for policymakers. Each year, an estimated 27 million to 46 million individuals worldwide are held in modern slavery, generating annual profits between $30 billion and $50 billion. However, little is known about how the market for trafficked individuals works – and, ultimately, how to prevent this phenomenon.

For decades, researchers have lacked large-scale sources of microdata on human trafficking, limiting the literature to either deep qualitative scholarship or accounting-like attempts to measure the scale of the problem. Apart from a handful of studies applying the tools of operations research to trafficking detection, we are not aware of any formal studies that have attempted to systematically study causal factors, prevention, or reintegration programs with quantitative rigor. Strikingly, only 12 percent of the published literature on trafficking was peer-reviewed. Without rigorous study, the policy response to trafficking has been uncoordinated and has had limited large-scale success.

The Stanford Human Trafficking Data Lab aims to be at the forefront of quantitative scholarship and data-driven approaches to fighting human trafficking. During its formative period, the Lab has focused on two main goals. First, we have worked to develop a human trafficking data repository as a global model for integrating and curating existing (but disparate) administrative government data sources for new scholarship on trafficking markets. Initial work focuses on Brazil, where the research team has developed a strong government partnership and where data transparency laws create an unprecedented opportunity. Second, the Lab is advancing a set of rigorous multidisciplinary research projects using the data repository to better understand human trafficking markets and the impact of policies focused on them. The goal is for this planning and development phase to serve as a proof-of-concept, demonstrating what can potentially be done in other countries as well.

Brazil is a natural choice for the initial focus. The country has strong open data policies and a robust commitment to fighting human trafficking. The Brazilian Digital Observatory of Slave Labor is a resource designed to help policymakers and law enforcement make more informed decisions about anti-trafficking policy. The initiative plans to build on this foundation, greatly expanding the platform and transforming it into a data resource suitable for rigorous empirical research. Although Brazilian government records surely do not capture the full extent of trafficking in the country, this repository would be the first of its kind – a fully linked microdata resource capable of supporting innovative new research on human trafficking markets, victimization, and the most effective approaches to deterrence.

Visit the Stanford Human Trafficking Data Lab website

Core faculty members

• Grant Miller , School of Medicine
• Michael Baiocchi , School of Medicine
• David Larcker , Graduate School of Business
• Victoria Ward , Stanford School of Medicine
• Trevor Hastie , Department of Statistics

Other members

• Kim Babiarz
• Jessie Brunner
• Luis Fabiano de Assis

Melding artificial intelligence and algorithms with health care and policy to combat human trafficking

An interdisciplinary team of Stanford researchers — from economists to statisticians to pediatricians — is collaborating to fight the global scourge of human trafficking. 

• Convocation 2024
• Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Initiative on Forced Migration and Human Trafficking

Research. education. advocacy..

The Pardee School Initiative on Forced Migration and Human Trafficking (FMHT) brings together students, scholars, practitioners and policy-makers to support research, education, and advocacy on the pressing issues of forced migration and human trafficking.

Upcoming Events: We are planning some exciting events for the future and will release more information via social media and our newsletter soon.

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According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 65 million people were displaced by the end of 2016. While existing international humanitarian and legal tools are designed to deal with refugees on an individualized basis and within short-term crises, we are witnessing a structural human displacement problem that is becoming more and more acute.

In response to this growing global crisis, the FMHT was founded in March 2015 at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. It is fitting that this initiative should be housed at the Pardee School—which boasts an interdisciplinary faculty committed to developing long-term sustainable policy solutions to some of the most pressing issues of our time.

FMHT brings together these scholars and practitioners in order to create policies and resources that have an impact beyond the classroom. We are enriched by our location in Boston—with its vibrant history as a migrant and refugee host city and thriving community of academics that is unparalleled in the United States. Our members include political scientists, sociologists, lawyers, doctors, economists, public health professionals, anthropologists, and religious figures; academics, practitioners, policymakers, and students.

By drawing specialists from such a broad range of fields, we are able to discuss and craft more comprehensive policies to propose to various stakeholders in humanitarian assistance. Our partnership with the Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies allows us to include academics and students from the entire Boston area and further develop our ability to cultivate multiple approaches to migration and trafficking.

About the Directors

Noora lori , assistant professor of international relations, pardee school of global studies, founding director.

Noora Lori   is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. Her first book Offshore Citizens: Permanent “Temporary” Status in the Gulf (Cambridge University Press 2019) examines the citizenship and migration policies of the United Arab Emirates, where non-citizens make up 90 percent of the population. Challenging the dominant paradigm of citizen vs. alien, her book shows that not all populations are fully included or expelled by a state; they can be suspended in limbo—residing in a territory for protracted periods without accruing citizenship rights. She has published in the Oxford Handbook on Citizenship, the Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, the Journal of Politics & Society, and for the Institut français des relations internationals (IFRI). She is the Founding Director of the Pardee School Initiative on Forced Migration and Human Trafficking, which she co-directs with Professor Kaija Schilde. At BU she received the Gitner Family Prize for Faculty Excellence (2014) and the CAS Templeton Award for Excellence in Student Advising (2015). She was previously an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies and a fellow at the International Security Program of the Harvard Kennedy School. She received her PhD in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University’s (2013) and her dissertation received the Best Dissertation Award from the Migration and Citizenship Section of the American Political Science Association in 2014.

Specializations: Comparative Politics, Immigration and Citizenship, Middle East Politics

Kaija Schilde , Assistant Professor of International Relations, Pardee School of Global Studies, Co-Director

Kaija Schilde is an Associate Professor at the Boston University Pardee School of Global Studies. She is currently working on a book manuscript addressing why states outsource security to firms and industries, titled  Outsourcing Security, Managing Risk: Hiding the National Security State in Global Markets . Her first book,  The Political Economy of European Security  (Cambridge University Press, 2017) theorizes EU-interest group state-society relations, identifying the political development of security and defense institutions as an outcome of industry interest and mobilization. Her research spans multiple dimensions of comparative national security, including the causes and consequences of military spending; the relationship between spending, innovation, and capabilities; defense reform and force transformation; the politics of defense protectionism; and the political economy of border security. She has published articles in the Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of Global Security Studies, Security Studies, European Security, and the Journal of Peace Research.

Specializations:

European Union; European Foreign and Security Policy; Comparative Politics; Defense Acquisition and Technology; Bureaucracy and Interest Groups; Computational Modeling and Simulation.

Affiliated Faculty Members

Susan akram.

Professor Susan Akram directs BU Law’s International Human Rights Clinic, in which she supervises students engaged in international advocacy in domestic, international, regional, and UN fora. Her research and publications focus on immigration, asylum, refugee, forced migration, and human and civil rights issues, with an interest in the Middle East, the Arab, and Muslim world.

Akram’s distinguished research was recognized with a Fulbright Senior Scholar Teaching and Research Award for the 1999–2000 academic year. She has lectured on Palestinian refugees to general audiences around the world as well as to committees of the United Nations (including the High Commission for Refugees and the Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), the European Union, and representatives of European and Canadian government ministries and parliaments. Since September 11, 2001, she has presented widely on the USA Patriot Act and immigration-related laws and policies as well as on her work challenging standard interpretations of women’s asylum claims from the Arab/Muslim world.

With her clinic students as well as in collaboration with other legal organizations, Akram has worked on resettlement and refugee claims of Guantanamo detainees, and has been co-counsel on a number of high profile cases, including the 20+-year litigation of a case of first impression on the interpretation of one of the exclusion bars to asylum, In Re A-H- . She has taught at the American University in Cairo, Egypt and at Al-Quds and Birzeit Universities in Palestine. She regularly teaches in the summer institute on forced migration at the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University, and in various venues in the Middle East on refugee law.

Christina Bain

Christina Bain is the Director of Babson College’s Initiative on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery where she is focused on addressing the role of business and entrepreneurial solutions in the fight against human trafficking, in addition to coursework and initiatives to train the next generation of business leaders in anti-trafficking strategies. Christina is the former and founding Director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery within the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, a program that she designed, developed, and implemented with the aim of creating data-driven public policy solutions to human trafficking. Prior to the Harvard Kennedy School, Christina was appointed by Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney as the Executive Director of the Governor’s Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence, a statewide commission of nearly 350 public and private sector partners.  She previously served as the Public Affairs Liaison to Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey where she worked on domestic violence and criminal justice issues, including human trafficking and sex offender management. Christina also served as a Special Assistant to Governor Jane Swift of Massachusetts.

Christina is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Meta-Council on the Illicit Economy; Global Agenda Council on Human Rights; and is the Co-Chair of the Global Agenda Council Network-Wide Human Trafficking Task Force, a cross-council initiative with other Global Agenda Councils and Forum industry partners. She is a member of the Global Initiative Network of Experts with the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime; a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations; and a member of the Massachusetts Governor’s Council to Address Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence under Governor Charlie Baker and Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito.

Julie Dahlstrom

Julie Dahlstrom directs BU Law’s Immigrants’ Rights & Human Trafficking (IRHT) Program, which offers law students the unique opportunity to represent noncitizen and survivor clients while developing important lawyering skills. Dahlstrom founded and directed the Human Trafficking Clinic since it opened in 2012. In 2014, the Human Trafficking Clinic was recognized by preLaw magazine as one of the top 25 most innovative clinical programs nationally.

She served previously as a senior staff attorney at Casa Myrna Vazquez, where she represented survivors of commercial sexual exploitation, and as managing attorney of the Immigration Legal Assistance Program at Ascentria Care Alliance. Dahlstrom founded and chairs the U and T Visa Working Group of the Immigration Coalition and is a member of the Human Trafficking Subcommittee of the Delivery of Legal Services Committee. She previously served as the co-chair of the Public Service Subcommittee of the Immigration Committee of the Boston Bar Association.

In 2012, she was appointed by Governor Deval Patrick to the Massachusetts Human Trafficking Task Force, chaired by the Attorney General, and she has served as the co-chair of the Victim Services Subcommittee and a member of the Labor Trafficking Subcommittee. In 2016, she received the Top Women of the Law Award from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Dahlstrom received a JD from Boston College Law School and a BA from Boston College.

Susan Eckstein

Susan Eckstein is a Professor of International Relations and Sociology at Boston University and Past President of the Latin American Studies Association. She has written extensively on Mexico, Cuba, and Bolivia and on immigration and the impact immigrants have had across country borders. Her most recent book, The Immigrant Divide: How Cuban Americans Changed the U.S. and Their Homeland, won awards from Sections of the American Political Science Association and American Sociological Association for Best Book in 2010/2011. She also authored prize-winning Back from the Future: Cuba under Castro and The Poverty of Revolution: The State and Urban Poor in Mexico . In addition, she edited Power and Popular Protest: Latin American Social Movements and co-edited books on social justice and social rights in Latin America with Timothy Wickham-Crowley and on developing country immigrant impacts in their homelands with Adil Najam. She  also co-edited a 2015 double issue of Diaspora that focuses on generational differences within diverse diasporas.

Eckstein has received grants and fellowships for book projects from a range of funding sources. They include the Russell Sage Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Institute for World Order, the Mellon Foundation through MIT, the Ford Foundation, and the Tinker Foundation. This year she received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship to write a book, Cuban Immigration Exceptionalism: The Long Cold War . Among other topics, the book addresses how U.S. Presidents and Congress have treated Cubans as refugees even when they sought U.S. entry for economic reasons. The book also addresses the various immigration privileges provided Cubans since the 1959 revolution in Cuba.

Lance Laird

Lance Laird is Assistant Director of the Master of Science Program in Medical Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Practice in the Graduate Medical Sciences Division of Boston University School of Medicine.  He is Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and in the Graduate Division of Religious Studies

Dr. Laird received his BA in 1986 in religious studies, with a focus on Islam, from the University of Virginia. He studied theology at Baptist seminaries in Kentucky and Switzerland, earning an MDiv in 1989. Dr. Laird completed his ThD in comparative religion at the Harvard Divinity School in 1998. His dissertation, “Martyrs, Heroes and Saints: Shared Symbols of Muslims and Christians in Contemporary Palestinian Society,” examined Christian-Muslim relations and nationalism through ethnographic fieldwork in Bethlehem.

Dr. Laird’s research at Boston University has focused on multiple intersections of Muslim identity with healing professions and public health in the US. His early research on shared symbols of Muslims and Christians in Bethlehem set forth a research agenda on the “dialogue of life.” He employs a “lived religion” and ethnographic approach, and draws on theories of racialization, social suffering, and identity formation. While continuing to write on Christian-Muslim relations in theological circles, he has published articles on how Muslims are represented in medical literature, the emergence of Muslim free clinics, and chaplaincy for Muslim patients; the civic participation and professional identities of American Muslim physicians; the assets that predominantly Black Christian and Muslim congregations bring to neighborhood public health; and cultural aspects of Somali oral health.

Dr. Laird is currently an organizer with the Greater Boston Muslim Health Initiative, studying networks of faith and health that affect local Muslims; and conducting research on healthcare access for Muslim women who have experienced domestic violence. He is also collaborating with family medicine faculty in qualitative studies of integrative medicine group visits and virtual group health promotion.  Dr. Laird is interested in developing new projects on religious and cultural community assets for immigrant and refugee health. He is directing the 2015 Boston University Religion Fellows Seminar on “Multiple Interdisciplinary Approaches to Religions, Health and Healing in Global and Local Contexts” with Dr. Mary Elizabeth Moore, Dean of the School of Theology.

Robert E.B. Lucas

Robert E.B. Lucas is Professor of Economics at Boston University. Professor Lucas completed the B.Sc. (Econ) and M.Sc. (Econ) at the London School of Economics and received his Ph.D. from M.I.T. His research has included work on internal and international migration, employment and human resources, income distribution and inter-generational inequality, international trade and industry, the environment, and sharecropping. Professor Lucas served as Chief Technical Adviser to the Malaysia Human Resource Development Program and is a Research Affiliate at the MIT Center for International Studies, the Institute for Economic Development, and the African Studies Center at Boston University. He was the recipient of the Chanan Yavor Prize for the best paper in development economics and the Gitner Prize for excellence in teaching. Professor Lucas has been a consultant to a number of international agencies, including the World Bank, ILO, OECD and USAID. This work has encompassed a wide range of countries, comprising Bangladesh, Bolivia, Botswana, Egypt, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa, and the Western Balkan states. His publications include more than thirty journal articles and half a dozen books, the most recent of which is the International Handbook on Migration and Economic Development.

Fallou Ngom

Dr. Fallou Ngom’s current research interests include the interactions between African languages and non-African languages, the Africanization of Islam, and Ajami literatures—records of West African languages written in Arabic script. He hopes to help train the first generation of American scholars to have direct access into the wealth of knowledge still buried in West African Ajami literatures, and the historical, cultural, and religious heritage that has found expression in this manner.

Another fascinating area of Dr. Ngom’s work is language analysis in asylum cases, a sub-field of the new field of forensic linguistics. His work in this field addresses the intricacies of using knowledge of varied West African languages and dialects to evaluate the claims of migrants applying for asylum and determine if the person is actually from the country that he or she claims.

Dr. Ngom’s work has appeared in the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Language Variation and Change, and African Studies Review, among others.

Denis J. Sullivan

Denis J. Sullivan (Ph.D., University of Michigan) is a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs as well as the Co-Director of the Middle East Center at Northeastern University. Prof. Sullivan is the founding Director of BCARS, the Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies, supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Dr. Sullivan is the author of nearly three dozen journal articles, book chapters, policy briefs, blogs and encyclopedia entries plus a number of books, including: Egypt: Global Security Watch , with Kimberly Jones, (Praeger 2008); The World Bank and the Palestinian NGO Project: From Service Delivery to Sustainable Development (Jerusalem: PASSIA, 2001); Islam in Contemporary Egypt: Civil Society vs. the State , with Sana Abed-Kotob (Boulder: L. Rienner, 1999); Private Voluntary Organizations in Egypt: Islamic Development, Private Initiative, and State Control (University Press of Florida, 1994); and Privatization & Liberalization in the Middle East , co-edited with Iliya Harik (Indiana University Press, 1992).

His current research and policy focus is on the Syrian refugee crisis and its impact on regional societies (Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey) as well as in the Balkans. He co-authored (with Jaime Jarvis) the policy brief Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis: A Call for Regional and International Responses and co-authored (with Sarah Tobin) “Security and Resilience among Syrian Refugees in Jordan,” MERIP .

Sullivan has been a consultant to the World Bank, USAID, U.S. State Department, U.S. Department of Defense, Council on Foreign Relations, human rights organizations, and academic institutions in Europe, the U.S., and the Middle East.

Prof. Sullivan also is the founding Director of the Dialogue of Civilizations program at Northeastern. Dialogue programs send some 1,200 students around the world each summer on 60+ faculty-led academic programs; each program is at least 5 weeks in length and some are 8-weeks long. These programs enable students to engage with host communities, learn languages, conduct research and service learning projects, and otherwise train and learn new skills. For 22 years, Dr. Sullivan has led programs in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Oman, Qatar, Dubai, as well as the Balkans (Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and Greece).

Sarah A. Tobin

Sarah A. Tobin is an anthropologist who teaches at the Watson Institute at Brown University, with expertise in Islam, economic anthropology, and gender in the Middle East. Her work explores transformations in religious and economic life, identity construction, and personal  piety  at the intersections with gender, Islamic authority and normative Islam, public ethics, and Islamic authenticity. Ethnographically, her work focuses on Islamic  piety in the economy, especially Islamic Banking and Finance, Ramadan, and in contested fields of consumption such as the hijab, and the Arab Spring. She has recently begun a new project examining gender and security with Syrian refugees in the fields of marriage in Jordanian camps. Her books,  Everyday   Piety : Islam and the Economy in Jordan and The Politics of the Headscarf in the United States are published by Cornell University Press. 

John D. Woodward, Jr.

John D. Woodward, Jr. is a Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Pardee School, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate classes on security issues. Prior to coming to Boston University in 2015, John served for over twenty years in the CIA as an operations officer in the Clandestine Service and as a technical intelligence officer in the Directorate of Science and Technology, with assignments in Washington, DC, East Asia, Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East, to include war zone duty. From 2003 to 2005, John served as the Director of the U.S. Department of Defense Biometrics Management Office, where he received the Army’s third highest civilian award for his work on using biometric technologies to identify transnational security threats.

Previously, John worked at the RAND Corporation, a federally funded research and development center, as a senior policy analyst (2000-2003) and the Associate Director of RAND’s Intelligence Policy Center (2005-2006), where he helped oversee, manage, and develop RAND’s work for the national security community. During this time, he was an adjunct professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University.

John has gained extensive experience related to intelligence, counterterrorism, and technology policy issues. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on four occasions, the Commission on Online Child Protection, and the Virginia State Crime Commission.

His publications include Biometrics: Identity Assurance in the Information Age , (McGraw-Hill, 2003), Army Biometric Applications: Identifying and Addressing Sociocultural Concerns  (RAND, 2001) and his many articles have appeared in various journals and newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal , Washington Post , Proceedings of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers , Legal Times , and the University of Pittsburgh Law Review .

He holds a J.D magna cum laude from Georgetown Law, an M.S. from the London School of Economics, where he was a Thouron Scholar, and a B.S. with honors from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Current FMHT Staff

Graduate Chair Co-Chairs

Interns 2021-2022

Brianna Aldea

Major: International Relations

Minor: Business Administration

Anna Rafferty

Major: English and American Studies

Minor: Classical Civilization

Tatiana E. Jose-Santos

Major: Psychology

Jenna Riedl 

Major: Painting

Hadeel Abu Ktaish

Minor: African American Studies

Previous FMHT Staff

Former Graduate Chairs:

Zach Crawford (Pardee ‘13, ‘20) hails from Buffalo, NY. He is an MA candidate studying Global Policy with a specialization in international public health policy, and also works full-time for the Office of the Provost. Zach previously served in Peace Corps Benin as a rural community health advisor and then as a volunteer manager for a refugee services agency before returning to Boston in 2016. In addition to his extensive background and interest in human rights research and advocacy, Zach has taken coursework in international law, political economy, global health economics and monitoring and evaluation for international health programs. He has a passion for improving health outcomes among the most vulnerable through both targeted programming and innovative policy.

Samantha Robertson is an MA candidate in Global Development Policy (GDP) at the Pardee School of Global Studies. Her focus is on economic development and human capital accumulation by increasing access to quality education in Latin America and the Caribbean. Her research is on conditional cash transfers (CCTs), gaps in education programs and policies, and using statistical analysis to promote effective development programs. Samantha is also an editor for the Pardee Periodical Journal of Global Affairs. 

Former Legal Fellows

Yoana Kuzmova

Yoana Kuzmova served as a legal fellow at FMHT during the academic year 2018-19. Since obtaining her Juris Doctor at the School of Law (2014) and a Master’s degree from the Pardee School (2015), Yoana has practiced in the areas of nationality and refugee law. Her research interests include protracted displacement, statelessness, and the future of citizenship. She has worked as a Clinical Instructor at the Boston University School of Law International Human Rights Clinic (2016-2018) and served as the Clinic’s Interim Director for the academic year 2021-2022.

Interns 2020-2021

Brianna Aldea , B.A. in International Relations minoring in Business Administration – Events Coordinator Intern

Ethan Collier , B.A. in International Relations – Advocacy and Communications Intern

Caroline Fernandez , B.A. in International Relations with a focus on Latin America – Student Engagement Intern

Madison Romo , B.A. in International Relations & Russian Language and Literature – Advocacy and Communications Intern

Interns: 2019-2020

Graduate Interns

Jessica Frith, BA/MA in International Affairs – Events Manager Intern

Lauren Labrique, MA in International Affairs – Advocacy & Communications Intern

Ari Platz, MA in International Affairs – Grants Coordinator Intern

Undergraduate Interns

Julia Mullert – Student Engagement Intern

Kavya Verma – Student Engagement Intern

Interns: 2018-2019

Khadija Noor – MA in International Affairs

Nikta Khani – Research and Institutional Development Intern

Stephanie Garcia – Events Manager Intern

Ashley Cruz – Advocacy and Communications Intern

Interns: 2017-2018

Jannate Temsamani , MA Global Development Policy

Samuel Brostuen, MA International Affairs

Sofie Sørskår Engen ,   BA International Relations and Political Science (2018)

Karla Kim ,  BA International Relations and Sociology (2020)

Maryna Ivanna Markowicz ,   BA International Relations (2019)

Paulina Prasad ,   BA International Relations (2018)

Ellen Asermely ,   BA International Relations (2018)

David Huang ,   BA International Relations (2019)

Raina Hasan,   BA Economics and International Relations (2018)

Interns: 2016-2017

Jeffrey Nicklas , MS Medical Anthropology

Yasmeen Ammus , BA International Relations  (2017)

Ellen Asermely , BA International Relations (2018)

Aida Bardissi , BA International Relations (2018)

Claire Coffey, BA International Relations (2017)

Sofie Engen, BA International Relations (2017)

Raina Hasan, BA Economics and International Relations (2018)

David Huang , BA International Relations (2019)

Colleen Karp , BA International Relations (2017)

Eva Koronios, BA International Relations and Middle East & North Africa Studies (2017)

Maryna Markowicz , BA International Relations (2019)

Ashley Mixon , BA Political Science (2017)

Smaranda Tolosano , BA International Relations (2017)

Citizenship Hub

The Boston University Citizenship Hub was launched to address the needs of newcomer refugees and immigrants, who have a beginner/intermediate level of English, and who need additional English training to take the United States Citizenship Exam. It brings together BU student language learners with these newcomers to create a dynamic space of learning and exchange for everyone involved. This interdisciplinary community outreach program promotes the ethnic and racial diversity of our community and country by bringing new arrivals into the legal fold.

Each week we hold multiple practice sessions for those who have watched and studied the Exam Preparation videos linked below. For information on how to join these sessions, please email us at [email protected] .

Resources for Learners 

Citizenship Exam Question in English

Citizenship Exam Questions in Arabic

If you are a BU student interested in volunteering with the Hub, please fill out this form.

Citizenship Hub Steering Committee

Minors: Arabic and History

Rana Hussein 

Major: Math & Computer Science

Noor Mchallah

Refugees and Migrants in Political Cartoons (RMPC) Database

Our BU research team created an original database of political cartoons depicting refugees and migrants around the world. The cartoons depict migrants and refugees in harrowing journeys across the desert and sea and the kinds of reception, detention, and discrimination they face once they arrive to a country. The RMPC database includes 2140 cartoons from 65 countries and 163 artists published between 2015-2017. After an initial collection of the cartoons, the research team coded each cartoon based on the actors, context, events, region, frames, and themes. The database will be analyzed for trends across region, time, and demographics and can be used to explore how the media portray migrants and refugees during times of crisis.

Research Team

Our Sponsors

• June 30 – Webinar: UN Global Compacts: Governing Migrants and Refugees
• October 10 – The Politics of Migration in the Middle East
• April 30 – Rocio Documentary Screening and Q&A with Director Dario Guerrero
• April 25 – Suitcase Stories
• March 28 – Invisible Hands Movie Screening
• November 12: Perspectives on the Future of Citizenship in the Middle East
• September 17: Caring for Survivors of Torture & Refugee Trauma
• April 24: Borders Now: A Reading & Conversation with Faruk Šehić and Mirza Purić
• April 19: Voices from the Edges of Europe
• February 26: Beyond the Headlines: Rohingya: Ethnic Cleansing? Genocide?
• November 3: Workshop and Panel Discussion on Migrant Disappearances in Mexico
• October 27-28: Disrupting the Human Trafficking – Migration Nexus (international workshop)
• September 25: Migration Innovation Incubators – Rethinking the Approach to Policy Education
• July 14-15: Refugee Resettlement – Between Policy and Practice
• April 20: “ Fake News Isn’t New or News – Remembering the 2003 US Invasion of Iraq “
• April 18: Expert Panel – Human Trafficking, A Global Crisis
• April 19: Local Anti-Human Trafficking Organizations, Panel Discussion
• April 20: Film Screening of “Not My Life” with REACT to Film
• April 4: Professor Perspectives – Undocumented Immigrants and Allyship
• March 28: FMHT Graduate Student Working Paper Roundtable
• February 16: Immigrant Dreams, Emigrant Borders: Migrants, Transnational Encounters, and Identity in Spain
• February 1: “ Refugees, Immigrants, and US – Town Hall Discussion “
• December 9: “ Freedom of movement, the migration crisis, and the reopening of the stateness question in Europe ”
• October 25: Amnesty International and FMHT Present: “Forced to Flee: The Human Rights Crisis in Syria”
• October 20: FMHT Discussion with Justin Gest: “The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality”
• BUIAA Global Insights Discussion: Along the Migrant Trail with Vicky Kelberer
• REACT to Film Screening of “After Spring”
• Global Crisis, Local Action : Panel of Local Refugee NGOs
• Refugee Benefit Gala with Eyes on Refugees
• April 22: “ Refugees NGOs, Social Networks, and Urban Homemaking: Ethnographic observations from Cairo ” with Dr. Anita Fabos
• April 15: “ Syrian Refugees and the Limits of Turkey’s ‘Open Door’ Policy ” with Dr. Cigdem Benam
• April 11: “ Managing Refugees though Economic Integration? Some Case Studies from the Middle East ” with Dr. Oroub el-Abed of SOAS London
• March 30: “Remittances, Forced Displacement, and Human Security” with Dr. Daivi Rodima-Taylor
• March 18: “Human Trafficking, Care, and the U.S. Healthcare Environment” with Jeff Nicklas, MS Candidate
• March 17: FMHT Student Working Paper Roundtable
• February 26: “Migration, Gender, and Medicine Across Cultures” with Dr. Lance Laird
• February 19: “Digital Solutions and Displacement” with Noora Lori
• February 18: “Living in the Shadows – the Disappeared Migrants in Mexico”
• January 25: “ Dying to Forget: Oil, Power, Palestine, and the Foundations of US Policy in the Middle East .”

Speaking of Psychology: Human trafficking, with Kalyani Gopal, PhD

Bonus episode.

Human trafficking occurs when individuals are economically exploited through force, fraud or coercion for labor or commercial sex. Worldwide, it is estimated that almost 25 million people are robbed of their freedom and human dignity through trafficking.

In a special bonus episode filmed at APA 2019, the annual meeting of the association, APA Associate Executive Director, Practice Research and Policy Lynn Bufka, PhD, talks with Kalyani Gopal, PhD, executive director of the organization Sexual Trafficking Awareness Freedom and Empowerment, on the problem of sexual trafficking of children worldwide, the damage it does to victims’ mental health and what psychologists are doing to help address the issue.

About the expert: Kalyani Gopal, PhD

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Lynn Bufka : Hello and welcome to Speaking of Psychology, a podcast from the American Psychological Association. I'm Lynn Bufka, and I'm guest hosting this podcast from APA 2019 here in Chicago. Joining us today is Kalyani Gopal, a clinical psychologist and the executive director of the organization SAFE: Sexual Trafficking Awareness Freedom and Empowerment. Thank you for being here. Welcome to the show.

Kalyani Gopal : Thank You Lynne. Thank you for having me here.

Lynn Bufka : I was hoping you could start by telling me a little bit about your background and how you came to be involved in this area of work.

Kalyani Gopal : Sure. I've been in the field for about 30 years now, and I first got in the field of human trafficking probably when I was 17 or 18 without knowing that I was working with victims of human trafficking.

Lynn Bufka : Oh, wow.

Kalyani Gopal : At this time, I was in India. I was a bachelor's degree student, and I was doing my bachelor's degree paper on- research paper- on women in jails, so young women in jails. So I went to this jail which is called Tihar jail. It's in New Delhi India, and I went to the jail and I was collecting data and the girls were disappearing. So I was the same age as those girls. I was 18, 17-18 myself and so were the girls. They were all locked up, there's 20 girls, 25 girls in a room all locked up in that room, and then they were disappearing the course of the night. So I used to come back to collect data from the very same girls, cause you know in research you’re collecting the data from the same group of people, so I go back to collect data and some of them are not there. And years, and then when I left there eight months later, they actually had me sign a paper saying that I would not disclose what I'd found in the jail. So in India, as in any country for that matter, girls are used by dignitaries who come to the- to the capital city of that country. It could be here, it could be Serbia, it could be anywhere in the world. Washington DC, five miles away from the Capitol building, is what they call the track, the “kiddie track.” Literally five miles from the Capitol building, right? And in that kiddie track you have young girls being trafficked. So it happens across the world. At that time I was so young myself, I'm so innocent at that time, I didn't know. So I guess that's really where I started working with victims of trafficking without knowing myself I was doing that. And then years later when I came to this country, I was doing my doctorate in Vanderbilt University, and then a little girl, a seven-year-old girl sat on my lap and she said “my dad's touching me.” And I didn't know what that was. That that was my segue into the field of human traffic- into field of sexual abuse, child sexual abuse. I actually came to this country to learn more about intellectual and cognitive neuropsych work, but I ended up doing child sexual abuse and forensic work, cause these kids were talking to me. So then because these kids were communicating with me and they wouldn't talk to other people, my professors and my supervisor said, okay, you know, why don't you talk to these kids, and I did. And then those children then started having to testify in court, so then I went with them to testify. And the rest, like they say, is history.

Lynn Bufka : Okay.

Kalyani Gopal : And then I started working with foster kids because a lot of the kids sexually abused end up in foster care. And then years, about 15-20 years later go- no, 30 years ago, 25-30 years ago, I had a family of four children in Gary, Indiana, and they were between seven years old and the youngest was two to three years old, and they were being asked to perform tricks with each other. So in Gary, one of the houses, it had like black windows. The windows were, there was black paper put on the windows, and inside the stage like this, a little stage, chairs just like that, and people were paying $10 a piece to come in to watch these kids do tricks, what they call tricks, on each other. So the parents were trafficking their own children. And at that time, we didn't call it trafficking. Thirty years ago, you know, it's child sexual abuse, no one said it was human trafficking right? So what we did was we called it child sexual abuse we- I went to court, the family, for the first time in the history there, the father got 56 years in jail. They had a life sentence, mother and father, they both got life sentences basically, and that was my very first case.

Lynn Bufka : Wow.

Kalyani Gopal : And from then on, I started getting cases on child sexual abuse from across the country, testifying wherever, you know, that was going on. A lot of them high-profile cases involving people who were like brothers of judges and politicians’ sisters and so forth. So I got involved with all of that. And then about 10-20 years ago, or 15-20 years ago maybe, I had a young girl call me from Chicago and I was at this time working in Indiana, and she called me and she said, “doc come pick me up.” And I was like, “I'm not going to come pick you up.” This is a foster child, I said, “I'm not gonna come pick you up, you know, go home. What are you doing at 9 o'clock at night outside? You get back home.” What I didn't know is that she was probably being trafficked. I had no clue. And to today that weighs on my mind as a child I could not protect. So from then on, I got really interested in the field of human trafficking. I realized these teenagers were disappearing. And what's really troubling is foster parents- some foster parents, not all- but some foster parents literally will ask for teenage children and teenage girls because, “I really get along well with the girls, you know I'm really good with girls, I work really well with them, give me the teenagers, they’re hard to place, they're really hard to place, the hard-to-place kids, we’ll take care of them.” Of course these kids are running away, or we think they're running away, but now I realize they're probably being trafficked. So having done all this, these years of child sexual abuse, I was now moving into the field of human trafficking. So at this point, I do literally 20% to 30% of my clinical work is on human trafficking work, well, anti-human trafficking work.

Lynn Bufka : Can you help listeners understand what human trafficking is? Because you, you're talking a lot about sex trafficking, but trafficking can involve labor as well, so can you help people understand sort of the range of what human trafficking encompasses?

Kalyani Gopal : I'm really glad you asked me that, because sex trafficking is like the sexy thing that people talk about right? No pun intended. But so there's two types of trafficking fundamentally: there's labor trafficking and there's sex trafficking. Labor trafficking is larger worldwide than sex trafficking, so labor trafficking is a one hundred fifty billion-dollar industry, right? Human trafficking is about 20% of all trafficking, sex trafficking that is, is 20% of all trafficking. Labor trafficking involves organ harvesting. So I was in India training the people, the NGOs, and the Miramar- the Myanmar Nepal India border. There's a lot of unrest there, there's a lot of refugees out there, so I was working out there with the NGOs and the magistrates and the IOM, the UN people there, and I was training them on how do you identify and work with victims of trafficking? We're psychologists, that's what we do. We train people to interview other people and to interact and to establish that rapport. And so when I was working with them, one of the things that comes up was organ harvesting, child brides- huge, huge issue of child brides, organ harvesting, sex tourism is very big, so especially Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, there's a massive sex tourism. We have brides going from China to Vietnam. We have brides coming from Nepal to India, Russia to India, so these are child brides that are being trafficked. That's very, very big. Even in this country we have child brides, and there's laws, every state doesn't have laws against child brides, just so you know. Some of the states allow child brides, so keep that in mind when you think about human trafficking. Another big aspect of human trafficking is the mining industry. So for example, in DRC which is DR Congo in Africa, they have a region called Kivu, and we were working with some of the folks out there, and what happens is there's, there’s tin, they mine, they're mining with tin. Tin mining. And the children and the women are trafficked for tin mining over there, so it's a very big industry all over the world. We have child soldiers in Kenya, so these kids are about three, four years old when these boys are then taken into human trafficking. They are child soldiers and they're made to fight for Isis. They're, they’re taken all over the world. So think of the Boko Haram children, the girls who were kidnapped, everyone knows about that, they were also trafficked, sexually trafficked, but they're also labor trafficked. Labor trafficking is huge between Nigeria and Italy. So Italy is a destination point, is a gateway into Europe, and they go from Libya and Nigeria, they go from Nigeria to Libya, Libya to Italy, so we are trying to break that chain. It's a supply-demand chain, so the U.S. is a destination country for sex trafficking. The Middle East is a destination country for labor trafficking. Europe is a destination continent for sex and labor trafficking, so there's several different forms of it. Sex tourism, if you ever travel to the middle-to the southeastern countries, sex tourism is very big and the sex extortion is very good- very big there, so tourists go from here, they think “okay you know what my wife's not here, my, my spouse, my girlfriend, whatever is not there, and what they do, pictures are taken and there’s extortion that takes place using the children. So there's a lot of pedophilia that goes on.

Lynn Bufka : It's a- it's a huge problem. I was researching this issue. I was overwhelmed by how big it is, and it happens not only across borders but within countries as well. And it was important, I learned something important, it’s distinct from smuggling.

Kalyani Gopal : Yes.

Lynn Bufka : Human smuggling is trying to get people who - into a country not necessarily for labor or sex purposes this is really about getting people into the country to have them being used and really kept to do things that they don't want to be doing in a way that we would consider violation of their human rights.

Kalyani Gopal : That's very well said because human smuggling involves money at the reception at the receiving end. So basically you pay someone fully aware of what's happening. You talk about informed consent all the time, right, they are consenting to be smuggled across borders. Human trafficking doesn't involve any consent. It involves deception, so it's fraud, coercion, deception.

Kalyani Gopal : You're not paying money to be trafficked.

Lynn Bufka : Right.

Kalyani Gopal : The trafficker gets paid to traffic you.

Kalyani Gopal : It's a whole different dynamic.

Lynn Bufka : I can only imagine, and I want to know more about what's the psychological impact of having been trafficked? What-what happens to the person?

Kalyani Gopal : It is massive it is t- it is, and I tell people, you talk about domestic violence, right? And we talk about human trafficking, and people often think, “well I have a domestic violence shelter, why can't I keep kids or women who are trafficked in that shelter?” You can't. Because a domestic violence victim can walk out. A human trafficking victim should not be allowed to walk out because when they walk out, they go to their trafficker. Immediately, the trafficker is waiting outside, and they’re terrified, terrified of speaking because even though you and I are talking, if we have a victim of human trafficking in front of us, it's just not three of us. Her trafficker’s in the room with her. He’s psychologically right there. So he- it's a manipulation, it's a dehumanization of an individual with it's almost like an addictive force. So what they do, they'll give you little bits of love. Teeny-weeny love, you know, you're great, you're beautiful, you're lovely. A little bit of love, and then massive doses of punishment. You know, there's pain through the cigarette butts being put on them. They're literally naked on a table, and so as an example to everybody else who spoke or snitched, you know, basically they beat them up. So if you don't bring X number of dollars home to the trafficker that day, you're in serious punishment: there's no food, there's no water, there's no drink, there's nothing for you.

Kalyani Gopal : It's a very seriously dehumanization, so your entire identity is what the trafficker tells you you are. If the trafficker says you're a woman you're a woman, you know, it's that bad. It’s that severe. It's a, it's a complete manipulation and control of the human mind.

Lynn Bufka : And how does a person ever get out of that? What- what is it that they can do to try to, to escape that manipulation? Is there something?

Kalyani Gopal : There's so much now. As psychologists, we have so much to offer. And the tragedy in this field, and I say it's a tragedy because there's not enough psychologists who are involved, because you always think of it as a social justice issue, social work issue. What am I doing with community stuff, you know? That that kind of mentality. We tend to be more clinically in our office in a safe, like a comfort zone, being in your office. But really we need to get out there in the community because that's really where human trafficking is happening. That's where our patients are. Our patients are in the community. They're living every day in the community. They're not living in our office, right? So we need to be out there. And so the ways to treat victims of human trafficking, what I do, I had to modify existing treatments to work with trauma victims of human trafficking because you're working with an addictive or an addicted human being. You're also working with a human being who doesn't feel she's human anymore because the trafficker’s who gives her an identity. So when you have that third person in the room you first have to separate, that literally, the psychological separation between the trafficker and her, like two separate entities. That's the first stage. And the next stage then is then you try to tell this person “who are you?” Then you have to build, you’re to build that person up not only as a human being but you build them up and say “what do I want? What do I like? Who am I? Who was I before I became a victim of trafficking? I became my pimp’s girl?” You know, they have their- they identify themselves very street language, which I won't use, but they have very specific language how they identify themselves. They have a hierarchy. It's like a harem, so each woman has a role in that harem. And then I do a lot of trauma work with rapid resolution therapy. I've modified some of the treatments because I do Eastern as well as Western because it's not only a psychological issue, it's a spiritual, emotion-it's, it's just a multi-faceted demeaning of a person. I've never seen a human being so non-human as I've seen in victims of trafficking. It is- they will sit in my office, and I work with severe sexual abuse, so don't get me wrong, I've worked with very, very severe sexual abuse cases, which you know they fragment their personalities too. And so they will sit here they will put their legs up there and they will just hold themselves like this for hours, and you cannot speak to them because in their heads, their trafficker is looking right at them. And they're not hallucinating. That person's in their head, you know, literally inside their head. So you're working with an individual who's so severely traumatized you know it it's it's it's just a tragedy. And so when you have to pull them out, the biggest thing, what I use, I use a lot of visual, tactile, I’m very hands-on with them. You know usually with trauma patients you say “don't touch them, don't go near them.” With them, they literally need you to hold them. You literally have to hold them you know like they’re like children. And once they trust you, initially they won't talk of course, but once they trust you, you can't stop them. It's like a dam just breaks through and they cry and cry and cry and they'll talk and talk and talk. A session with them is about three hours. You can’t go shorter than three hours because there's so much they've held in. But if you say “I'm sorry, you know, my times up, you know and you need to go, my patient’s waiting outside,” you've lost them. They're not coming back.

Lynn Bufka : Right, and they, they would need time to, sort of, get out but then to be safe enough to then leave your office I would imagine.

Kalyani Gopal : Absolutely, absolutely. You can't do traditional EMYou can't do traditional rapid resolution. You can't do traditional-traditional visual therapy. You can't do the traditional narrative. So I've had to modify everything I've learned in order to be able to reach out to them. So I modified it, for example the rapid-rapid resolution therapy which is like a visual hypnosis kind of therapy. I call it the chakra rapid resolution. Chakra therapy. So I put them into deep relaxation and I literally do work that I've never done before in my life but I had to do it because that's what works. So ultimately when in looking at our patients and we're saying we need to do evidence-based work, I say “yeah sure, let's do evidence-based work I'm all for it, but what do I do with this patient who is not gonna respond to it” you know? I can't just say “hey by the way this is my technique. I'm gonna use it because I know it's backed by serious scientific research.” You have to heal your patients, right? That's what we are sworn to do. So I modify a lot of those techniques, and now my patients within about four sessions I’m able to get them to speak. I’m able to get them to write because sometimes they would refuse to write it, they’re frightened to write.

Kalyani Gopal : I'm able to separate them from the trafficker with that huge guilt. It's like this massive shame and guilt because once they get better, once they realize they’re victims, and they, by the way, they never think of themselves as victims. They think of themselves as just being the girlfriend. So if we go there and say “I'm so sorry you’re victimized by human trafficking and this guy is your pimp,” she doesn't know, he's not my pimp. I'm doing this because I want to do it, and if he's my pimp, it’s because I chose him to be my pimp.

Lynn Bufka : So how do individuals find their way to you if they're not seeing themselves as being trafficked?

Kalyani Gopal : Usually I'll get them from the FBI. I get them from the Homeland Security Department. I get them from the sheriffs in the Sheriff's Department.

Kalyani Gopal : So the deputies in the Sheriff's Department will send them to me. Other survivors will send them to me, then not- NGOs can send them, yeah. So I get them from a variety of different.

Lynn Bufka : So how can the average person recognize whether or not someone's being trafficked when that person themselves doesn't necessarily recognize it?

Kalyani Gopal : Absolutely. So you know in the statistics we have in Indiana, for example, is like a hundred five… hundred and fifty nine cases were reported last year. In my clinic alone I had six cases in two months that I identified. So think about if I, if someone is not trained just like I wasn't years ago, I had to train myself, if someone's not trained as a psychologist, we'll miss all the signs. So this is what you're looking for: you're going to be looking for people with extra phones, someone who’s hygiene is questionable, someone who has got problems of running away from home several times. So within 48 hours of a kid being picked up by running away, one in five to six children is picked up by a trafficker. That is a high statistic we have, you know.

Lynn Bufka : Yeah.

Kalyani Gopal : We have four hundred fifty-eight thousand missing children in the country, right? But NCMEC, which is the National Missing Exploited Children, they have identified about four and fifty-nine thousand children I think in the last year. But when they did the Superbowl and during the Superbowl they rescued children, they were able to identify only ten percent from the missing children's database.

Kalyani Gopal : Ninety percent they didn't even know were missing.

Lynn Bufka : Wow. That's huge.

Kalyani Gopal : That's huge.

Lynn Bufka : It’s huge. So, so people who are being trafficked don't necessarily recognize it, it's very hard for us to recognize that people are being trafficked.

Lynn Bufka : What does someone who has been trafficked, if they get out of the situation, what is it that they can do or what seems to help them to rebuild their lives?

Kalyani Gopal : So what really helps them is jobs. So one of the biggest things I've got from survivors, the biggest complaints we have from survivors because I host a conference every year on human trafficking, is because a very first conference we had in 2014, we had eight survivors there and all eight of them had said “please give us jobs. Don't just tell us you're going to get us out of this life.” They call it “the life.” They say “don't get us out of the life. Give us jobs. Because if we have jobs, we won't go back. But if I can't pay my rent, I can't put food on the table, you know, I can't buy a small toy for my grandchild, I can't do all of that, how do you want me to survive? At least my pimp”- sorry you know, you used the word, that's what they call them- “at least my pimp gives me the money that I can, you know, survive. I can send money home if I have to.” So the way to identify these victims in a clinic setting, ask them three questions. Just three. If you can ask these three questions, you can actually identify victims. One: who's in charge of your money? Who's in charge of your money, if you're an adult, right? who is in charge of your money? In a domestic violence condition or situation, maybe your spouse is in charge of your money or the guy who's your boyfriend. So then you want to ask more questions. Has he made you sleep with other men? Simple questions, right? Cause one question leads to a next question leads to a third, so just the classic interviewing technique that we’re really well trained to do. And then the second question you always want to ask is have you been made to do something you didn't want to do? Have you had to do something you didn't want to do? It could be yeah I didn't want to go to the mall. sorry but I had to go to the mall. Anything else that caused you shame or made you feel bad about yourself, about your body. So you can ask questions that lead to more deeper questions, and it's like the funnel approach in interview that we do. We ask broad questions and then we narrow it down. And the third question you can always ask, especially of a child abuse, child sexual abuse victim: did you ever feel bad about sleeping with this person? Usually it’s the mother's boyfriend, because the mother, knows that you're, she- that you had sex with the boyfriend or the husband because in exchange, she was able to pay rent. That is human trafficking. That literally is human trafficking. But we don't call it that. The mother trafficked the child-

Kalyani Gopal : In order to pay rent-

Kalyani Gopal : For the other kids and herself.

Lynn Bufka : Right. So clearly with, with trafficking, and certainly you're talking a lot about sex trafficking, the inability to provide basic things, it's the financial motivator in many ways.

Kalyani Gopal : It’s all financial.

Lynn Bufka : I mean that's obviously the person, that one person is benefiting financially and one person is barely surviving. That’s sort of what's happening. I was- the first question you asked, said you should ask, is who's controlling the money? I suspect that's also really relevant for people who are being labor trafficked as well.

Kalyani Gopal : Absolutely.

Lynn Bufka : And are there things to look out for for people who are being labor trafficked that might be different from sex trafficking?

Kalyani Gopal : So labor trafficking has a very different dynamic than sex trafficking. We don't see many in the clinical setting for labor trafficking, right? Because labor trafficking tends to be domestic servitude. So in domestic servitude for example, they'll have small children who are sent by their parents to work in your house in exchange for all the income that she makes going back to the family. So in certain, certain situations for example in labor trafficking, usually with organ harvesting, for me that's like really big because that's one of the biggest forms of labor trafficking. What happens with organ harvesting is in order to go from one country, for example, to come to from Mexico to the U.S., right? Think about labor trafficking when you think about that. I know we focus on sex trafficking a lot, but that's with the minors. But with the older people, the older adults, labor trafficking would be where they take an organ in exchange for safe passage of your family. So for example, a kidney, if I don't have any or if you have families with kidney failure, but the kidney that’s donated, there is a cost to it. So if you give me your kidney, I will allow your, your wife and child, one child, to come across the border. You have to give me something else in order for your other child to come across the border. And that child becomes the unaccompanied minors. So between January and June, we had 56,000 children unaccompanied in the border. In May alone, we had 11,500 children who are unaccompanied. So this is a massive, massive human trafficking racket. The proportions I can't even explain to you how, how seriously in, how seriously they impact families within this country as well. Because think about these kids are going to school with your kids. These kids are intermingling within your kids. They're then being hired by traffickers to then say “hey, go to the school and get these other kids to upload pictures of themselves.” So labor and sex trafficking then gets intertwined. So it's a very fine line between the two and often they go together, labor and sex trafficking very frequently go hand in hand. So these are things we sort of tell people to think about because nowadays with the internet and the digital age, the biggest problem we are having now is our middle schoolers being asked to upload pictures of themselves with nothing much on. And then they're saying, “if you're my friend, you'll send me your picture.” Before, it was “if you're my friend you’ll wear the same color clothes I wear.” You know, nowadays if you're my friend you'll upload a picture of yourself doing XYZ. So these kids do that just because they don't want to lose the friendship and because everybody else is doing it so of course they're gonna do it. And then after some time, they say I don't want to do it again. Oops, too late. I have your picture and I’m gonna show it to your mother or your father or the whole school’s gonna know what you did. And from then on, they're trapped.

Lynn Bufka : Right, so there's a way that now media technology is really contributing to individuals in this country getting brought in to, maybe not actually performing sexual acts, but providing pornography.

Kalyani Gopal : Right.

Lynn Bufka : Because they're being manipulated. That's a- I hadn't realized that was happening as well. It's horrifying to think about. What else do you think people should know about trafficking and how psychology could have- can help people in that space?

Kalyani Gopal : So I think the biggest, what I'd really like for everyone to know about human trafficking is that it's here. It's happening here. It's happening among us. It happens in meetings. I host a conference like I said on human trafficking, I had somebody come in 2014 my 20- my first conference, and the guy had an NGO that are volunteers. You know how you have nonprofit organizations and they're like let's- you need to volunteer, why don't you volunteer in this organization, or they say, you know, we are a modeling agency, you know. You have a pretty daughter or you're pretty yourself or good-looking yourself. They say, “hey would you like to model?” And then they'll take your picture and they'll say they're going to model you. That picture, your face, goes on somebody else's body. Or they'll make you do certain poses and they'll put that and they can digitally change you so that you are actually performing an act. And then they'll send that picture back to you, the video back to you, and say if you don't do what I tell you or you don't serve as soon as a person, I'm going to send this to whoever you're married to. And imagine you're married, you have children, you have a family, and you just say okay I want to make some extra money, I want to do some modeling, I work in a retail store. That's where they go: the malls. The malls, the schools, things that we think- the playgrounds- we think these are safe places, and they’re generally safe if you're just alert to the signs.

Lynn Bufka : So it seems that one of the challenges these days is that it's really, we have much less control over how our image is projected.

Kalyani Gopal : Correct.

Lynn Bufka : And that that can be used in manipulative ways that-

Lynn Bufka : -were not present twenty years ago. So I would imagine that in the field of trafficking, particularly around sex trafficking-

Kalyani Gopal : And labor trafficking.

Lynn Bufka : the technology that is being employed, law enforcement agencies have all sorts of new challenges in order to keep up with that.

Kalyani Gopal : And in labor trafficking, usually the biggest problem we have is people come from other countries to safer countries, what they think is safer countries, for a better opportunity. You come for a better life for your children, unless you're a refugee. So there's two types of refugees right? One are refugees who come to the country because they're escaping political conflict. They're, they’re political refugees. The other kind of refugees are those who are escaping poverty and they want to come for a better life. So there's more conflict and politics and then there is a need for economic- they're both economically challenging aspects. So when they come to this country or to any other country that is doing better or is considered safer, quote unquote, safer than their country, then what happens is they become at risk for labor trafficking. So oftentimes this is a job, it's a promise of a job, they'll say you know what, you, you come there or you'll have a job waiting for you, you just have to turn in your papers. So the biggest aspect of a labor trafficking and sex trafficking is they'll take your papers from you.

Kalyani Gopal : We’ll keep your papers because we need to turn this over to the authorities and we can speak and convince them you know we can convince them that you're a good candidate for this job. So I need all your papers. Of course you're going to give your papers because you want to get that job or you want to be allowed in a new country. Once you arrive in the new country, you'll never get your papers back. So you have no papers, you have no identification. You're basically, even though you may have come in legally at some level, you still have nothing. So that is a challenge between legal and illegal immigration too for us, because they have lost their papers because those papers get confiscated. And that's a big problem.

Lynn Bufka : What kinds of challenges or where would you hope that psychologists and people who are interested in psychology, how could they use this information in the- in their local communities?

Kalyani Gopal : Really raising awareness. So what I do a lot of, lot of my work when I go talk in churches you know I talk about psychological trauma. I talk about identification. I talk about child development. I talk about adolescent- so I have a whole curriculum I've developed. It's called the “I Act” program, so we've now got accredited as the first program that's been accredited globally. And I've developed this program because we have 10 modules covering all the way from infancy labor sex trafficking all the, because people don't talk much about labor trafficking, so thank you so much for bringing it up again and again. This is so important. And labor trafficking just remember is larger, larger and more worldwide than what we experience in the U.S. as sex trafficking and labor trafficking, so keep that in mind. So that's one thing I really want to convey. But as psychologists, we can actually teach about child development. We can teach about the human brain. We can teach about the neuropsychological substrates of trauma. We can teach about how to treat trauma. There's so much rehab, so I'm building a village for human trafficking victims. And we're building it in Indiana, and we have a whole restorative treatment, trauma-informed, trauma-based, evidence-based and non-evidence-based treatments where we are actually going to be having a hundred children and they're really they're trying to raise twice a million dollars, just so you know. So we’re trying to raise all that money so we could build the very first human trafficking safe village that is actually built by psychologists, run by psychologists and mental health professionals, and the vets are going to be providing us the security. So we are, we are rehabilitating the vets, we are rehabilitating the children and we have youth and the mothers with children.

Lynn Bufka : Mm-hmm.

Kalyani Gopal : So it's a very comprehensive program.

Lynn Bufka : Sounds like a really important vision for what you could do to benefit people who have been trafficked.

Kalyani Gopal : I’m hoping.

Lynn Bufka : That's really impressive.

Kalyani Gopal : Thank you.

Lynn Bufka : Well I'm so happy that you were able to join us today. Thank you for spending your time with us.

Lynn Bufka : Thank you for listening to this podcast. This is APA’s Speaking of Psychology podcast. If you have enjoyed the podcast or have any comments or ideas you want to share, you can email us at [email protected]. You can find this podcast on Stitcher, iTunes or wherever you find your podcasts. You can also visit our website at www.speakingofpsychology.org and listen to other episodes there as well. Again, I’m Lynn Bufka with the American Psychological Association.

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Human Trafficking & Survivor Reintegration

Human trafficking is unambiguously immoral and universally illegal, yet it is the fastest growing and third largest criminal industry in the world. That is because it is alarmingly profitable for traffickers, despite the harm that it causes for trafficking victims. And unfortunately, the risk factors that impact vulnerable people are intensifying with the isolation, unpredictably, and economic instability brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our research is focused on identifying solutions to reduce the risk of trafficking for vulnerable individuals. By illuminating the economic impacts of modern slavery and developing tools to reduce the risk of victimization, we inspire and mobilize stakeholders and the next generation of leaders to engage in education, policymaking, advocacy, intervention, and rehabilitation activities in Orange County, CA and across the developed world.

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Dr. Robinson Speaks of Human Trafficking Research on Podcast

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The Freedom Lifemap, co-created by Dr. Kelsey Morgan (Everfree; Blum Center) and Dr. Angela Robinson (Blum Center), was featured as a segment on CNN's Freedom Project. In the video, Dr. Morgan talks about the need that the Freedom Lifemap fills for survivors of...

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Support our Work

Please join us by supporting the work to understand the economics of human slavery in modern times.

Kelsey Morgan   is the founder and executive director of Willow International. She lived in Uganda from 2010 to 2013 where she led an anti-trafficking organization. She founded Willow to meet the growing demand for aftercare services and to eradicate the global human trafficking epidemic. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Studies from UC Irvine and is currently obtaining her PhD at UC Irvine’s School of Social Ecology.

What We Know

Modern slavery will not end until the profits disappear..

Despite universal opposition to slavery on moral grounds, the practice is growing across the world, due to its immense and immediate profitability to slavers. Our spending behavior fuels slavery’s profitability through consumerism. Many things that we buy and use every day can be and often are used to exploit people, especially children.

Our consumerism fuels exploitation thereby subsidizing this repugnant practice. The goods and services linked to slavery are only profitable to a few, and they  are costly for everyone else. The costs of helping people who have been exploited and traumatized — legal services, medical care, job training and so on — are enormous, and they fall on all of us.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Human trafficking: results of a 5-year theory-based evaluation of interventions to prevent trafficking of women from south asia.

A correction has been applied to this article in:

Corrigendum: Human trafficking: Results of a 5-year theory-based evaluation of interventions to prevent trafficking of women from South Asia

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• 1 Gender Violence & Health Centre, Department of Global Health & Development, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom
• 2 Lumos Foundation, London, United Kingdom
• 3 Faculty of Population Health Science, Institute for Global Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Preventing modern slavery is of global interest, but evidence on interventions remains weak. This paper presents findings from a 5-year theory-based evaluation of an empowerment and knowledge-building intervention to prevent the exploitation of South Asian female migrant workers. The evaluation used realist evaluation techniques to examine the intervention mechanisms, outcomes, and context. Findings from qualitative and quantitative data from Nepal, India, and Bangladesh indicate that the intervention mechanisms (trainings) were not well-targeted, not delivered by appropriate trainers, and did not address participants' expectations or concerns. The outcomes of empowerment and migration knowledge were not achieved due to poor integration of context-related factors, flawed assumptions about the power inequalities, including barriers preventing women from asserting their rights. Ultimately, interventions to prevent exploitation of migrant workers should be developed based on strong evidence about the social, political, and economic realities of their migration context, especially in destination settings.

Introduction

Human trafficking is a global phenomenon that touches most corners of the world, with ~40.3 million individuals estimated to be in situations of forced labor and forced marriage—broadly referred to as “modern slavery” ( 1 ). Studies over the past two decades have increasingly documented the physical, psychological, and socioeconomic harm caused by extreme exploitation, which generally affects the world's most vulnerable adults and children ( 2 , 3 ). Yet, there is astonishingly limited evidence on “what works” to prevent these abuses or to address the consequences ( 4 ). In a recent systematic review including 90 reports on trafficking programs, the authors concluded that organizations are still “struggling to demonstrate impact and discern what works to combat human trafficking” ( 5 ). Similarly, a Rapid Evidence Review of interventions in South Asia noted that “…the outcomes from the reviewed studies alone cannot be used as recommendations for policy and practice on trafficking…” ( 6 ). These findings undoubtedly come as disheartening news to the many policy-makers and donors who seek evidence-informed avenues to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal Target 8.7, which aims to eradicate forced labor, end modern slavery and human trafficking, and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labor.

Human Trafficking in Nepal, India, and Bangladesh

The Asia and the Pacific region account for over half of the ~24.9 million people in forced labor globally. India is estimated to have the largest number of persons in modern slavery globally at 8 million, compared with an estimated 592,000 in Bangladesh and 171,000 in Nepal ( 7 ). Among those in situations of forced labor, the largest prevalence, 24%, are estimated to be in domestic work ( 1 ), where exploitation by employers and labor intermediaries are common.

Awareness and Knowledge-Building Antitrafficking Interventions

Premigration community-based awareness and knowledge building activities have been particularly popular among implementing agencies and donors because they are of relatively low risk and can reach large populations at fairly low cost ( 8 ). Safe-migration interventions are generally based on the assumption that if people had better knowledge about migration-related risks and regulations and knew their rights, they could avoid trafficking-related abuses and migrate safely ( 9 ). However, to date, there is no robust evidence that premigration knowledge promotes safer migration ( 9 – 12 ). Of activities that have been assessed, to whatever extent, the vast majority of evaluations has only measured outputs (e.g., number of sessions and participants) and intermediate outcomes (e.g., immediate levels of knowledge and awareness). No evaluations have measured how increased awareness or knowledge affects individual behaviors and, in turn, how different behaviors might affect incidence or prevalence of human trafficking or modern slavery ( 13 ). Studies examining awareness-raising and knowledge-building activities, including those using experimental designs, have stopped at the point of assessing whether messages were learned by the participants vs. tracking how the new knowledge was applied or measuring how it affected migration-related safety or trafficking outcomes ( 10 , 14 , 15 ). To date, there are no data indicating modifiable factors or actionable targets to reduce “vulnerability” to trafficking. Studies attempting to identify determinants have cited primarily broad development problems, such as “low income; few economic opportunities, and instability of the local economy” ( 16 ) or ‘'poverty,” “gender,” and “age” ( 9 ). Unfortunately, these insights are not particularly helpful for anti-trafficking programming because they could relate to most ailments in low-resource settings, which development programmes have been trying to address for decades. Moreover, for intervention purposes, these broad determinants are not generally actionable within current anti-trafficking budgets or timeframes.

SWIFT Study of the Work in Freedom Program in South Asia

The South Asia Work in Freedom Transnational Evaluation (SWIFT) was a 5-year program of research and evaluation in Nepal, India, and Bangladesh of the International Labor Organisation's (ILO) Work in Freedom Programme (WIF) ( 17 ). The SWIFT evaluation was conducted independently and sought to answer the question: How do the WIF community-based prevention interventions influence women's risk of forced labor (modern slavery) in domestic work and garment sectors? SWIFT is the first evaluation to follow a large-scale, multicountry trafficking intervention, from conception to implementation, using theory-based mixed-methods approaches. The WIF program theory was based on the concept that trafficking could be prevented by predeparture community activities comprised of women's empowerment strategies, including training on the value of women's work, the costs and benefits of migration, safe and informed migration, women's rights and workers' rights and knowledge, and skills capacity building ( 18 ). Sessions in some sites also included components to improve women's ability to make informed livelihood decisions either by equipping them to migrate safely or access to local livelihood options if they did not want to migrate. This paper analyses the combined SWIFT theory-based evaluation findings across the three country intervention settings, namely, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, and examines the intervention theory, context, mechanisms, and outcomes. WIF in India focused on internal migration, while in Nepal and Bangladesh, the target was international migration.

Theory and Methods

SWIFT applied a mixed methods theory-based approach to evaluate the theory and implementation of the WIF program. Specifically, SWIFT investigated the validity of the intervention's theory and underlying assumptions that labor trafficking could be reduced or eliminated by enhancing women's autonomy and generating adoption of safe migration practices ( Figure 1 ). SWIFT examined whether empirical evidence supported the theory that migrant women's greater awareness and knowledge would decrease their risk of exploitation and explored implementation, causal pathways, and detectable effects on knowledge transfer, uptake, and application. Findings were intended to inform future replication and scale-up.

Figure 1 . Work in Freedom (WIF) theory, assumptions, and activities evaluated using theory-based methods.

A theory-based realist evaluation design was selected because of the early stage of intervention development and the programmatic need for evidence on intervention designs and implementation. Several important considerations influenced the evaluation design. First, the space–time complexity of human trafficking demands research approaches that integrate causal thinking to capture the complex causes–effects interactions vs. methods that tend to isolate single causes of observed effects ( 19 , 20 ). Second, many core components of the intervention were still under development, and the main outcome was relatively undefined at the start of WIF implementation. Third, at the start of WIF, there was little evidence on risks and protective factors to support the hypothesized causal pathways from empowerment to protection against exploitation , which meant that focusing on effectiveness measurement would not provide useful results ( 21 ). That is, even if our evaluation indicated some level of intervention effectiveness, we would not know if it could work elsewhere ( 22 ). If the evaluation did not find positive results, we would not know whether there was a problem with the implementation or with the theory. Fourth, the intervention's feasibility, acceptability, and uptake had not been previously assessed to justify a complex and costly experimental design, making it very difficult to assess external validity. Fifth, collection of SWIFT monitoring data specifically for the evaluation was not possible due to local constraints. Consequently, we could not conduct a process-outcome evaluation, which could have allowed us to more rigorously investigate processes of change, assess quality of implementation, and identify contextual factors linked to variations in outcomes ( 23 ).

Thus, to capture the subject's complexity, the nascent stage of the intervention, and to achieve the explanatory power needed, we used a multisite mixed-methods design and adopted innovative analytical approaches, which served as strong tools for reasoning under uncertainty ( 24 ). Following realist principles, we did not expect to find a definitive answer to the question of what works to prevent human trafficking but rather aimed to investigate what mechanisms were relevant to preventing human trafficking in the intervention contexts ( 25 ). The intended “impact,” women who choose to migrate for work are “empowered and informed to find safe and decent employment,” was the ceiling of accountability 1 for the WIF program vs. “prevention of trafficking” (see Figure 1 ). Using data from the three countries, we examined constraints and enablers for the immediate training outcomes (empowerment and information) and to the ultimate intended impact (reduced trafficking).

Forced Labor Measurement

To assess prevalence and types of exploitation within our study population, we followed the ILO's guidance by assessing three dimensions of forced labor: (1) unfree recruitment, (2) work and life under duress, and (3) impossibility of leaving the employer ( 27 ). For each dimension, a range of involuntariness and penalty indicators were measured, and these were classified as medium or strong, according to the ILO guidelines. Indicators were constructed from a number of questions asked in the survey about specific individual experiences ( 28 ). Participants who reported at least one indicator of involuntariness and one penalty within a dimension, of which one was a strong indicator, were defined as having experienced that dimension of forced labor. Experience of any one of the three dimensions constitutes forced labor ( 27 ).

Study Methods for Each Study Site

In Nepal, formative research was conducted in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Labour and Mobility, Social Science Baha (CESLAM) in the district of Dolakha prior to the rollout of the community component of the WIF intervention. The formative research was conducted to provide initial prevalence figures on migration, as such data were not available. Subsequent research was conducted in three of the five WIF districts, Chitwan, Rupandehi, and Morang and included 519 returnee migrants who had previously migrated internationally for work purposes and 340 prospective migrants who planned to migrate internationally for work. Qualitative semistructured interviews were also carried out with 55 of the prospective migrant women who participated in the survey, of which six were reinterviewed following their attendance of the WiF 2-day training. Participants interviewed for the prospective migrant survey were followed up by telephone to track their migration process, including after their departure from Nepal. At the first follow-up, 188 women were reached, representing an attrition rate of 45%. Of the 188 women, one-third reported that they were no longer planning to migrate, reducing the sample size to 130. At the second follow-up, only 10 women participated, and the data were not included in further analysis.

In India, surveys were conducted in collaboration with the Centre for Women's Development Studies (CWDS) with 4,671 households, including detailed survey interviews with 1,218 women and 1,156 men in 20 probabilistically selected villages across the Ganjam District of Odisha. Among the participants, 112 women and 429 men had previously migrated ( 29 ). Pre- and posttraining questionnaires were also administered with women ( N = 347) who participated in WIF's 2-day premigration training session. To gage awareness levels, participants were asked a single question relevant to a concept and asked to answer free form in their own words, i.e., interviewers did not read out item lists. For example, to examine awareness of the benefits of migrating for work, women were asked: “What would you say are the main benefits of moving away from home to take up work somewhere else?” Enumerators could then select any of nine benefits that women could name ( 30 ). Vignettes were also used in some questions prior to eliciting women's awareness of particular concepts. Such depersonalization encouraged participants to reflect beyond their own individual circumstances, which is particularly useful when discussing sensitive topics ( 31 ).

In Bangladesh, qualitative research was carried out in collaboration with Drishti Research Centre, in three research sites in the district of Narayanganj: (i) a rural area; (ii) a former resettlement area for Dhaka slum dwellers—now an industrial district; and (iii) a densely populated semiurban area. The team conducted ethnographic observations and interviewed a cohort of 40 migrant women who participated in the WIF training and stated intentions to migrate. Women were interviewed five times between December 2015 and May 2017 ( 32 ).

In the intervention sites in Nepal and Bangladesh, most women who migrated internationally were engaged in domestic work. In the India intervention sites, most women migrated internally and the largest portion worked in construction.

Analysis for each research component was conducted and reported separately by country. In this paper, we conducted a synthesis of findings across the different studies, based on principles of realist evaluation. We consider the implications for future prevention interventions designed to inform and empower women to find safe and decent work and, in turn, avoid abuse and exploitation at destination.

Using the formative data collected in Nepal, we estimated key characteristics of migrant households and returnee migrants, including prevalence of labor migration, and findings on remittances, mobile phone use, common work sectors, and reported injuries ( 33 ). In the other three sites, we examined migration planning among prospective Nepali migrant women by comparing first-time and repeat migration using logistic regressions controlling for district, time until proposed departure, and age. Further methodological detail is available elsewhere ( 34 ).

To analyze past labor experiences and remigration intentions among Nepali returnee women, we examined their remigration intentions against their experiences (or not) of forced labor during their most recent migration. We used Bayesian networks to model the Nepal returnee dataset to examine causal interactions between variables and make predictions about the effect of potential interventions. We used multivariate logistic regression to examine the association between forced labor experience and speaking the destination's language among women who migrated to Arabic-speaking countries. The model was adjusted for destination country and work sector, based on the conceptual framework and findings published in the article by Kiss et al. ( 20 ).

Thematic analysis was used to analyze semistructured interviews in Nepal, and discourse and thematic analysis were used to analyze interviews in Bangladesh ( 32 , 35 ).

Descriptive analysis was used to describe the context of WIF's implementation in Odisha. We calculated the number of migrant households, prevalence of migration, predeparture indicators, working conditions, and prevalence of forced labor among migrants by gender. To analyze the pre- and posttraining data, we used descriptive analysis and unadjusted analyses (paired t -tests, McNemar's tests, Wilcoxon signed ranks tests) to estimate the differences in scores before and after predeparture awareness training. Adjusted analyses used mixed effects models to explore whether receiving information on workers' rights or working away from home prior to the training was associated with changes in before-and-after scores. Further information on analysis is available elsewhere ( 30 ).

We report overall findings using the Context–Mechanism–Outcome framework in realist evaluation ( 36 ). We first describe findings by Mechanisms of WIF, followed by the interventions Outcomes, before describing how context affected both mechanisms and outcomes in the Context section. We first describe findings on the intervention's mechanism rather than initially focusing on the context to reflect the way in which WIF was conceived and presented to stakeholders, in 2013. WIF's design relied on the scarce body of evidence that the field had accumulated at that time, in addition to inputs from researchers and practitioners in the field. These inputs were used to determine the mechanisms that were deemed effective to prevent trafficking (the intervention's intended impact). Contextual variables were not part of these initial discussions and were also absent in the first iterations of the program's theory of change and log frame. The basic assumption that guided the development of WIF's community-based component was that women's empowerment would lead to reduced incidence of trafficking.

Mechanisms of WIF

This section describes the main characteristics or mechanisms of the WIF intervention, i.e., what it was about the WIF interventions that brought about any effects in empowerment and information outcomes, and on the incidence of human trafficking in each intervention context. WIF's proposed mechanism was that predeparture training, targeting prospective migrants, would empower women, make them aware of their migration circumstances, thus changing their migration behavior, and ultimately protect them from human trafficking. We describe below the results from our research that relate to WIF's mechanisms, based on Dalkin et al. ( 37 ) conceptualization of mechanisms in realist evaluations ( 37 ). That is, we examine the mechanisms both as the resources offered by the intervention and the ways in which these resources change the reasoning of participants.

Intervention Content

In each country, the training was designed as premigration decision-making or premigration preparation sessions for prospective migrants, which aimed to help participants consider local employment opportunities, the pros and cons of migration, practical migration preparation, common problems encountered during migration, and emergency contacts. In Nepal, prospective migrants who completed the survey were followed by phone over time to track their migration planning and process. At the first follow-up interview, 50% of those reached reported having attended the WIF training ( n = 94/188) and noted that the most important information they received was related to the documents required to migrate (62%) and legal travel routes (40%) ( 38 ). In India, while the training was well-received, with 95% of participants reporting that they learned information about migrating safely that they did not know before, assessments of participant learning indicated that all knowledge domains covered by the training remained low after the training (see Outcomes below) ( 30 ). In Bangladesh, although some women appreciated the content of the training, they often did not think the guidance was relevant to their lives, and some found certain information to be incorrect. As noted by one participant in Bangladesh who was informed of local livelihood options that did not materialize: “We can now tell anyone who wants to hear, that all these beautiful words about getting a loan are pure lies” ( 32 ).

There were also misperceptions about a “hotline” at destination in case of emergencies, which, for some, had serious implications, as in the case of one Bangladeshi woman who had migrated to a Gulf State:

Eleven days after arrival, a distressed Shikha [alias] called her husband and her mother and asks to be repatriated, who contacted the NGO fieldworker. She recommends that they let the phone keep ringing because Shikha is acting childishly and is not taking sufficient time to adjust. Shikha also calls the NGO helpline from the employer's home. The NGO social worker does not seem to understand the sexual abuse that Shikha cannot reveal ( 32 ).

While there was a “hotline” as promised, the support workers' ability to respond was not sufficient to meet this woman's actual needs. Similarly, in Nepal, women attending the training felt safer to migrate after having heard about contact details of the implementing partners because they believed they would be rescued if needed ( 39 ).

Target Participants

Participants for whom WIF intervention content was largely irrelevant were recruited across sites, which likely affected retention and interest in program messages. The WIF intervention's target participants were identified and recruited by local organizations commissioned by the WIF program. For example, in Nepal, peer educators conducted house-to-house visits to identify women interested in migrating, who would then be invited to the 2-day WIF training. This broad targeting approach, which treated all women of working age as potential migrants, was deliberate due to the stigma associated with women's labor migration and the need to achieve a maximum number of participants to meet donor obligations. Unsurprisingly, findings from Nepal suggest that many who were identified as “prospective migrants” did not actually have any clear plans to migrate but rather a loose idea of considering migration if the opportunity arises. Among the 188 women interviewed during follow-up surveys, only one-third ( n = 58) stated that they still intended to migrate, while 15% ( n = 27) had arrived at their destination. This somewhat loose participant selection process inevitably raised questions about the extent to which the participants were appropriately targeted and selected, which may also have had the knock-on effect of lowering women's uptake of the training information. Among 347 training participants in India, just 10.4% had thoughts of moving away from their village before the training, which also reflected low female outmigration patterns in which only 7% of households had a female migrant ( 30 ). As with Nepal participants, the low proportion of training participants considering migration likely indicates poor participant identification. Poor intervention targeting was also reflected by the low numbers of women who actually migrated for domestic work in the India study site (vs. construction and agriculture, which were not WIF's focused sectors).

Participants also seemed to have mixed motives for agreeing to attend the training sessions. For instance, several participants in Bangladesh indicated that they joined primarily for the free meal. Numerous participants also had misguided expectations of the “premigration training,” explaining that they thought the training would provide them direct assistance to migrate. As a Bangladeshi participant noted: “I went to the [NGO] training hoping I would get a visa and they would help me to migrate but got nothing… [the NGO] needed us… Now they are finished with us.” As she indicated, some perceived that their participation was more beneficial to the program than to themselves ( 32 ).

Implementation

Each 2-day training program was implemented on a specific date and time, which may have meant that participants were receiving the information too far in advance of their possible travel to retain the knowledge when they needed it. In Nepal and India, the training sessions focused on helping women decide whether or not to migrate, which meant some would only be deciding to migrate after the training. As noted by one Bangladeshi participant: “I liked everything about the training. The way the sister talked, the food…. But if you ask me what was said I could not tell you. I forgot most of it.” The migration planning process can happen very quickly or extend over a year or more, suggesting that “one-off” interventions may not meet actual needs as well as ongoing services and guidance. In India, training was very well-received, with 98.8% stating that they could follow along and understand the information given and 94.1% reporting that they would recommend the training to other women, but at the same time, there were extraordinarily low levels of actual learning (see Outcomes below).

Observations about implementation also raised questions about whether the sessions were delivered by the right trainers. In a number of the sites, the training sessions were led by women who were of a higher socioeconomic class than the participants and who rarely if ever had their own migration experience. This social class difference may have led to participants' reluctance to accept some of the messages because of the messenger—especially messages pertaining to rights and empowerment. As one participant in Bangladesh explained: “I liked what they said about rights. There is nothing wrong with these beautiful words. But this kind of talk is not for us. It is good for educated people like you [pointing to the researcher]. What do we do with these nice words? We cannot implement them.” In Nepal, the training sessions were conducted by a peer educator from the implementing partner, alongside a social mobilizer who may or may not have had migration experience. In India, training sessions were conducted by implementing NGO's staff, and it was unclear whether any had migration experience.

Outcomes of WIF

WIF's intended outcome was “Women are empowered to make informed migration decisions and an enabling environment is created for their safe migration into decent work.” The program's theory relied on the premise that this outcome would lead to the intended impact of “reduced incidence of trafficking of women and girls within and from India, Bangladesh and Nepal into domestic and garment sectors, through economic, social and legal empowerment.” This section describes the outcomes of the WIF premigration sessions for women, specifically addressing women's understanding and ability to acquire and apply a greater sense of empowerment and information to find safe and decent work when migrating .

Uptake of Empowerment and Rights Attitudes

The WIF training sessions sought to improve women's perception of the value of their work and their rights, both inside and out of the home. Among the 94 women in Nepal that attended the training, most appreciated messages about their rights, but only 2% indicated that the most important knowledge they gained was about the “rights of migrant workers” (of 20 items) ( 39 ). Low interest in worker rights may have been due, in part, to the fact that most women did not yet know the destination to which they would be migrating—or if they would be migrating at all. Actually, one in two Nepali women planning to migrate in the next 3 months knew nothing about contract details, including salary, living situation, hours, time off, contract length, or penalty for leaving early.

Interviews with women who had previously migrated indicated that migration itself conferred a sense of empowerment. Many Nepali women described feeling empowered via earning their own income, deciding how to spend their money, and their wider knowledge of the world from going abroad. Conversely, findings also suggest that the association of women's migration with promiscuity was stigmatizing for some returnee women who described being gossiped about when they returned ( 40 ). Moreover, in settings such as Nepal, where women's labor migration is a relatively recent phenomena, women who challenge traditional gender roles are frequently stigmatized, and these concerns were not addressed by the WIF intervention.

The erroneous assumptions hindered outcomes on empowerment. In India, women's attitudes toward women's work remained relatively fixed even after the training. For example, when asked about the statement, “Woman's work is not as important as men's work,” before the training, 47.3% agreed, which only changed to 44.9% afterwards. Attitudes toward domestic work also remained broadly negative, with 43.6% of participants agreeing that “Sita should feel ashamed to do paid domestic work in someone else's home,” before the training compared with 46.7% after. Despite these findings, small positive changes were observed for respect and rights. For example, before the training, 47.3% agreed that “Paid domestic workers have the same rights as all workers,” which increased to 59.9% after. After the training, a majority reported they learned about women's rights (85.6%) and workers' rights (84.9%), but these changes were not reflected in their reported attitudes about these concepts ( 30 ).

Uptake of Migration-Related Learning

Outcomes on migration-related learning were also relatively low. In India, women's pre- and post-knowledge of migration risks and opportunities was assessed using single questions connected to a migration-learning construct, such as, “What would you say are the main risks in moving away from home to take up work somewhere else?” Before the training, participants could cite an average of 1.2 risks (of 13) compared to 2.1 risks after the training. Similarly, low learning scores were observed for virtually all topics included in the training, indicating very low to zero retention of training messages ( 30 ).

In qualitative interviews in Bangladesh, women's perceptions of risk following the training did not reflect WIF messages. For example, advice from the WIF training to migrate without a dalal (informal labor intermediary) was strongly rejected ( 32 ). Women believed it was necessary to use a dalal to migrate. While women recognized numerous risks related to migration, many believed that outcomes were due to chance, and some believed that spiritual practices would protect them. Participating in WIF training was interpreted by some women as a kind of “certificate,” which lent them a special advantage that would reduce their risks during migration ( 32 ). However, at the same time, women did not often follow the advice they received in the training (e.g., travel via formal routes and agencies). In qualitative interviews in Nepal, one woman reported that she learned she should obtain necessary migration documents and travel via safe routes. Nevertheless, she traveled through an irregular channel following the advice of her broker and discussions with her husband. These types of decisions suggest that WIF messages may be constrained by individual and contextual realities, spiritual or superstitious beliefs, and structural forces.

Reduction in the Incidence of Human Trafficking

Findings from Nepal indicate the premise that women's empowerment and awareness prevents human trafficking is misguided in that context. Instead, our results indicate that the most important risk associated with forced labor is their country of destination, which is determined by the labor recruiter. Women's individual characteristics, awareness, and participation in trainings did not affect their likelihood of unfree recruitment, work and life under duress, or impossibility of leaving their employer (the three dimensions of forced labor, as defined by the ILO) ( 20 ). Data from Bangladesh suggest that this might also have been the case in that context, where qualitative accounts of posttraining migration show the difficulties women had in implementing WIF's empowerment strategies, as described above.

This section analyses WIF's outcomes in the context of the underpinning theory and assumptions. The contextual conditions needed for the intervention mechanisms to be activated ( 41 ) were not theorized previous to WIF's implementation. The results presented in this section describe how these contextual conditions interacted with WIF's theory.

Formal vs. Informal Recruitment Agents in Migration

A core assumption in the WIF theory of change was that migrant women should and could use formally registered recruitment agents (vs. informal brokers). Therefore, a central WIF program message discouraged the use of informal brokers in favor of registered agents and included guidance about how women could secure the required travel documents, negotiate formal work contracts, and travel via legal migration channels. Our findings indicate that, in reality, many, if not most, of the women planning international migration have to engage with informal agents at some point in their journey ( 42 ), especially women who came from rural areas where there are few or no registered agents. Rural women in Bangladesh had greater trust in local recruiters because they had the impression that recruiters would be accountable in some way if something went wrong—even if plans would eventually involve registered agencies ( 43 ). In India, women migrated almost exclusively within India. Only 13.9% of migrant women relied on a broker. The vast majority of women's migration was facilitated by their friends or acquaintances without participation of a labor contractor (72.2%). Among those who used brokers, deception was commonly reported: “I had no idea to find out my whereabouts. The person (broker) was maintaining tight secrecy for which we were in doubt. We started querying to the broker regarding our work settlement. I was not in a favor of working in anybody's house. The broker had told us to wait till the next morning. But, he had cheated us.”

The Influence of Rights and Empowerment Messages Amidst Local Gender Norms and Socioeconomic Power Dynamics

A further assumption in the WIF theory of change was that empowerment training could lead women to exert their rights as women and as workers. However, one influential barrier hindering this behavior change may have been women's very low confidence in their own ability to assert their power in their communities or within their families—particularly in the face of the pervasive gender inequalities, especially the cultural norms related to female migration. In India, over half of the returnee female migrants (53.5% of n = 112) reported they had limited input in the decision concerning their migration. In Bangladesh, women explained that they would have great difficulty expressing the empowerment messages they heard in the training. Exercising their rights became even more problematic when women needed to negotiate with labor brokers and nearly impossible with employers once they arrived in the destination, not least because work conditions are rarely negotiable and rights related to foreign workers are not enforced even if they exist on paper, particularly for domestic workers ( 44 ). In other words, knowing about their rights could not protect women if the context did not provide space to assert those rights. It is not a coincidence that forced labor among Nepali female returnees was higher in countries with the kafala system at the time of the study, which gave employers full state-sanctioned rights over migrant workers, including their visas ( 45 ).

In addition, while the WIF intervention tried to normalize migration for the WIF participants, female migration in South Asia is still highly stigmatized because of its association with sex work or promiscuity ( 40 ). Nearly half of female returnees in India (48.6% of n = 112) reported suffering stigma when they returned home. In this sense, in women's own community, WIF's messages were hampered by the social reality of women's lives, where entrenched social norms and accepted power structures pose substantial barriers along the WIF-anticipated pathways toward empowerment, particularly when empowerment is specifically related to migration.

A further underlying, albeit more distal, assumption was that if women could be equipped with correct knowledge about migration and assert their knowledge with recruiters (e.g., contracts, rights, migration regulations), this could influence recruiters to change their behavior. That is, if women knew how to negotiate their contracts and understood the laws and their rights and necessary documentation, recruiters would have to treat them differently, i.e., could not exploit them. Yet to date, there is little to no evidence from our study or elsewhere indicating that intermediaries alter their practices—exploitative or not—if women are more knowledgeable about the migration processes. Conversely, our study showed that having contracts did not protect Nepali migrant women from forced labor at destination ( 20 ).

Risk Awareness Among Target Populations vs. Risk Tolerance

Another underlying WIF assumption was that being aware of the risks of forced labor can make one safer from exploitation—an assumption that has underpinned many trafficking prevention activities around the world ( 6 ). Yet, findings from our research and other studies indicate that most prospective migrants are actually aware of migration-related risks. Nevertheless, individuals frequently maintain fervent hopes that migration will work out for them personally , or are willing to take their chances, even if they believe there are risks for other people ( 10 , 46 ). Among SWIFT participants in Nepal, just over two-thirds (67.8%) of returnee migrant women reported having been aware that migrants may be deceived about their working terms and conditions prior to migrating. Most reported (91.2%) having suffered forced labor. Additionally, data from the Nepal survey with returnees and prospective migrants suggest that past experiences of forced labor are also not related to whether or not a respondent decides to return to the same destination or sector in which they were previously exploited. There does not even seem to be a “dose response effect,” as participation in trainings did not reduce the likelihood of experiencing forced labor—even among those women who had a work contract, which was suggested to be protective according to the WIF training ( 20 ).

Language Capability and Exploitation

Local language skills can influence women's negotiating power, but this was not a strong component in the trainings. For example, even for interstate migration in India, language barriers can affect their engagement at destination. As one study participant in India explained: “In Kerala, I could not understand their language. They too do not understand our language, I suppose. I felt like, I was mum almost all the time. There was only work, all the time. We could not take rest for a while during the duty hours. This is so exhausting. I feel very tired there. On the top of this, there is hardly any chance of social interaction. Sometimes, I feel like damning those people there” ( 29 ).

Among Nepali returnees who had migrated to Arabic-speaking countries, almost three in four (73.6%) reported that they could speak some Arabic. The assumption that they would be able to negotiate their contracts or working conditions in Arabic seems, however, farfetched. Results from regression analysis suggest that the prevalence of forced labor among returnees was not associated with speaking the language [crude odds ratio (OR), 0.75; 95% CI, 0.74: 4.0; AOR, 1.1; 95% CI, 0.41: 2.8]. Actually, the prevalence of forced labor was slightly higher among women who could speak the language (95.7%; 95% CI, 93.0: 97.6) vs. women who did not speak the language (92.8%; 95% CI, 86.8: 96.7).

Learning Uptake Among Participants

An important assumption in the WIF design was that the invited participants would be interested in, engage with, and take up the learning offered in the WIF curriculum. Yet, findings cast doubt on the learning uptake by participants. Although the vast majority of WIF training participants in Odisha reported previous training on worker's rights or labor migration, WIF participants' initial knowledge scores about migration risks, practices, rights, and collective bargaining were very limited, and their scores remained low even after the 2-day training, as noted above ( 30 ). Low learning levels might be explained by low prevalence of female migration (7% of households) in the site that ILO selected for the training and evaluation, which likely hindered participant interest and uptake of migration-related information. This finding was similar to the prevalence of female migration in the formative research site in Dolakha, Nepal (2%). As a result of the formative research, this site was dropped from the evaluation. Another possible reason for low learning uptake In India might have been the substantial training focus on domestic work when the larger portion of female migrants worked in construction (25.2%) vs. paid domestic work (19.1%). Moreover, women in India may not have been interested in the exploitation and trafficking messages offered in the training because of the generally low levels of reported forced labor (4%), especially when compared with Nepal (91.2%). At the same time, however, Indian women who had migrated within India working in non-domestic work sectors reported fairly poor work conditions, with 53% indicating that they worked in a dusty, smoky, fume-filled space without adequate ventilation; 50% did tasks that could hurt them or cause illness or sickness; and 37% were in uncomfortable or painful positions for long periods ( 47 ). Yet, occupational risks and protections were not part of the WIF training curriculum. Furthermore, in qualitative interviews, migrants in India reported non-payment of wages, reduced wages, or delayed payments, as well as restrictions in freedom, violence, and abuse by employers. One interviewee reported her experience: “In Kerala, the sister's (female employer) husband misbehaved with me. So at that time I was frightened. And I wanted to go home. About this matter I couldn't speak to anyone, because language was a big problem. Toward the end of my 5 years stay, I deliberately became more uncooperative…. The unpleasant experience of sexual assault by that old man in Kerala has indeed left a lifetime scar on me. I used to spread a mat under the bed of a room and sleep there with fear like a dog.” Despite regular evidence from this study and others, abuse, especially sexual abuse, was not integrated into the curriculum.

Intervention-focused evaluation on human trafficking, forced labor, extreme exploitation—or “modern slavery” —is a relatively nascent field of study. As human trafficking is an emerging area for interventions, it is not surprising that findings on trafficking prevention currently suggest more weaknesses than strengths in the WIF intervention theory, assumptions, mechanisms, and outcomes. Moving forward toward more effective and cost-effective programming, results from this evaluation offer crucial insights about future antitrafficking prevention programming that relies on premigration training. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence on the ineffectiveness of premigration knowledge building as an antitrafficking strategy ( 10 , 15 ). Furthermore, this evaluation highlights the importance of understanding the full context in which interventions are intended to have an effect, not solely the site where the intervention is delivered. This study also has implications for future methodological approaches to intervention development and evaluation.

First and foremost, when addressing modern slavery, and even when considering “everyday exploitation,” there is no denying that the dynamics in each context play the most significant role. The asymmetric power relationship between workers and others involved in their recruitment and employment will continue to hinder mechanisms such as premigration training from achieving the outcome of making women safer because it relies on women to be able to apply these rights and information. In other words, while the WIF intervention's messages about women's rights as women and their rights as workers are undeniably inherently beneficial, it nonetheless remained unreasonable for women to believe in these rights and even more difficult for them to assert them in settings in which these rights are rarely, if ever, respected ( 48 ). Exerting these rights is especially difficult in countries where employment contracts bind employees to employers through migration sponsorship programs, such as the Kafala system in the Gulf countries. Evidence from our research and many other studies show that migrants face increased risks of exploitation, violence, and reduced access to justice under this system ( 20 , 48 – 50 ).

This context of often-extreme power imbalances suggests that it may be problematic to invest in premigration interventions alone, as these single location initiatives do not take sufficient account of the full migration trajectory, especially the later stages toward the destination and workplace, where the power asymmetry widens and most of the abuses occur. Because women themselves are not able to confront the entrenched and unequal power dynamics with recruiters or employers, interventions must be designed to address multiple points in a woman's migration trajectory. Figure 2 highlights how power asymmetries grow over the course of migration, which will limit the potential effectiveness of interventions that solely aim to arm women with knowledge before they migrate without addressing the increasing power differentials women encounter throughout their migration journey. The WIF community-based intervention's theoretical assumption, that if women were equipped with the migration-related knowledge, awareness of their rights and a budding sense of empowerment, they could manage the forthcoming negotiations, was not credible in the face of the severe inequalities related to gender, socioeconomic status, and migrant discrimination, particularly the state-sanctioned inequalities in destination locations. While there have been international legislative achievements that should influence local laws, such as the adoption of the International Labor Organization's Domestic Workers Convention 189 ( 51 ); to date, there have been only 29 ratifications, few of which include common destination locations for migrant domestic workers and no Gulf states. Moreover, while these tools lay the essential scaffolding for future improvements, there is little evidence of their earnest implementation and even less evidence that women workers experience any enforcement or benefit from regulatory provisions. These intervention challenges were also noted in the 2020 report by the United Kingdom's Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), “It also makes little sense to address international trafficking and forced migration in source countries without also taking necessary action in destination countries and along migration pathways” ( 52 ). Unfortunately, the original Work in Freedom programmatic theory of change for the community-based activities relied on assumptions about the potential for individual empowerment and awareness raising to translate into reduction in vulnerability when migrating. However, WIF did engage local implementing partners that worked closely with migrant populations or had expertise with gender issues.

Figure 2 . Migration intervention trajectory and increasing power asymmetries.

While WIF recruited a broad range of participants, many anti-trafficking programmes target participants based on poverty, sex and education status as supposed “risk factors”, which are non-modifiable characteristics that generally fall beyond the scope of anti-trafficking programming. Findings from our work suggest that identifying at-risk groups based on these individual indicators is likely to be misleading at best and wasteful at worst. Moreover, this study indicates that individual situations have to be carefully considered in the gendered and socioeconomic context to avoid assumptions about the promise of empowerment against exploitation. That is, programs to prevent labor exploitation among international migrants need to address more than just the predeparture characteristics of prospective migrant women but must consider interventions that shift the power imbalances for migrant workers in relation to larger structural determinants, particularly recruitment processes and the employment context at the end of the migration trajectory. Targeting modifiable determinants of a migrant's experiences, for example, recruiter behaviors, which fall further up the structural pathway, may yield better results (see Figure 2 ).

Furthermore, the political context of interventions matters. Definitions of trafficking and forced labor are highly contentious, and governments of both origin and destination locations often dispute the use of these constructs and measurements to describe the situation of their citizens or their foreign workers. During the course of our evaluation, there was some resistance to the subject of forced labor and human trafficking. Moreover, the release of prevalence measurements of trafficking and forced labor was seen as particularly sensitive to governments and the international organizations operating in these sites. In particular, international agencies were concerned about the potential negative implications of the numbers of migrants being exploited and feared that the findings would cause government to (re)instate the female labor migration bans ( 53 ).

From a realist evaluation perspective ( 21 ), WIF lacked some clear initial theorizing about what were potentially successful pathways to influence change in deeply constrained migration trajectories. Moreover, having the programmatic ceiling of accountability fixed on women's empowerment and awareness meant that the actual effectiveness of the program was left mostly unchecked throughout implementation, with only the emerging findings from SWIFT, especially the qualitative component in Bangladesh, able to reveal some of the unintended and often harmful outcomes. Comprehensive monitoring systems that inform a program's adaptation would have been necessary to ensure prevention of harm via early detection of unintended outcomes.

Limitations

Methods for data collection and analysis were not the same across sites. In each setting, we prioritized robust methodological approaches that were complementary and could address our main evaluation question, i.e., to what extent the rationale and assumptions of WIF were supported by context-specific evidence, and what were main enablers and barriers to implementation. We relied on the knowledge and experience of our local partners to ensure that we implemented feasible, acceptable, and ethical methodological approaches for research in each site. Triangulation across sites showed many similarities in findings, even considering the different methods used for data collection. This consistency in findings provided strong indications of the strength of the evidence produced by SWIFT on WIF's theory and implementation.

Of the four cross-sectional surveys we conducted, two relied on representative population samples. Unfortunately, both were conducted in WIF intervention sites with very low prevalence of female migration (Dolakha in Nepal, and Odisha in India). These sites were initially selected by the ILO to be the focus of the SWIFT evaluation, but Dolakha was ultimately removed for Nepal. The surveys with prospective and returnee migrants in three other Nepal districts relied on WIF's strategy for identification of their target population. This strategy aimed to avoid underreporting of migration experiences and aspiration by relying on identification of migrant women by peer educators hired by the ILO's local partners that operated in the specific districts. This population cannot, therefore, be considered representative of the overall population of female migrants living in the evaluation sites. We can, however, safely assume that they represent WIF's target population, since these were the women who were invited to participate in WIF's activities.

Loss to follow-up was very high in longitudinal data collection in India and Nepal, especially after women left home. We put in place several strategies to reduce attrition, but we were not able to conduct many interviews after women reached their destination. Findings on outcomes, in particular (especially quantitative data), were limited by the ethical and logistical challenges to follow women throughout their migration journeys, especially women in exploitative, abusive, or unfree work conditions. In Nepal, follow-up was particularly challenging, partly due to the 2015 earthquake that occurred at the end of the fieldwork. In the aftermath of the earthquake, women's contact details and migration plans may have changed, which may explain in part why there was such a large number lost to follow-up. Details of limitations in each of the individual studies are available elsewhere ( 20 , 28 , 30 , 34 , 35 ).

We acknowledge that the WIF intervention involved more than the community-level activities and also worked with governments, trade unions, employers, and others. These other components may have had positive effects, but our remit with SWIFT was to evaluate only the community-level activities.

This theory-based evaluation strongly indicates that the community-based component of the WIF intervention was not sufficiently researched or well-designed to prevent the exploitation of migrant women. This evaluation also contributes further evidence against premigration knowledge-building and awareness-raising because they are extremely unlikely to sufficiently equip migrants to overcome the power inequalities that they will encounter throughout the migration journey, especially once they are in their employment situation. While these findings are disappointing, they are nonetheless crucial for the field of human trafficking prevention precisely because the results demonstrated that the intervention did not work. There is growing recognition of the necessity to publish null findings of rigorously produced evidence for interventions that do not do what was intended and offer explanations for apparent failure. Scientists reporting weak or null findings are arguably among the most valuable soothsayers in policy or programming realms because of their ability to explain what should be done differently or more effectively in the future, to avoid the waste of precious funds ( 54 ). While our research did not indicate that the intervention was effective in reducing women's risk of exploitation, the results most certainly emphasized that women who decide to migrate for work need and deserve better migration policy protections and effective interventions, so they can be safe when they strive for better livelihoods for themselves and their family.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Ethics approvals were obtained from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) (reference numbers 8840, 7021, and 8895), the Centre for Women's Development Studies, Indian Council of Social Science Research for India, the Nepal Health Research Council (reference numbers 1040 and 1441) and the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling, an autonomous research institute in Bangladesh. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

CZ and LK: conceptualization, funding acquisition, supervision, and writing—original draft. LK, JM, and NP: data curation and formal analysis. CZ, LK, JM, and NP: investigation, methodology, and writing—review & editing. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This evaluation was funded by the Foreign & Commonwealth Development Office (previously known as the Department for International Development), Grant No. GB-1-203857-102, awarded to LK and CZ at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The funders did not play a role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Funding URL: https://devtracker.fcdo.gov.uk/projects/GB-1-203857 .

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the many female and male participants who agreed to participate in the study. We thank Samantha Watson for her role in designing and implementing the study, Christine McLanachan for overall study leadership and coordination, and partners at AAINA, SEWA , and the Centre for Women's Development Studies in India, the DRISHTI Research Centre in Bangladesh, and Centre for the Study of Labour and Mobility at Social Sciences Baha in Nepal. We thank Tanya Abramsky at LSHTM for her role in analyses for Nepal. We are grateful to the FCDO colleagues for their consistent support throughout the evaluation.

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54. Miller-Halegoua SM. Why null results do not mean no results: negative findings have implications for policy, practice, and research. Transl Behav Med. (2017) 7:137. doi: 10.1007/s13142-017-0500-6

Keywords: human trafficking, modern slavery, migrant women, realist evaluation, South Asia

Citation: Zimmerman C, Mak J, Pocock NS and Kiss L (2021) Human Trafficking: Results of a 5-Year Theory-Based Evaluation of Interventions to Prevent Trafficking of Women From South Asia. Front. Public Health 9:645059. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.645059

Received: 22 December 2020; Accepted: 23 March 2021; Published: 17 May 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Zimmerman, Mak, Pocock and Kiss. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Cathy Zimmerman, cathy.zimmerman@lshtm.ac.uk ; Nicola S. Pocock, nicola.pocock@lshtm.ac.uk

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Ph.d. student fights human trafficking.

Kelsey Morgan keeps her promise

Kelsey Morgan made a pledge 11 years ago and she’s been working on it ever since.

She promised Lilian of Uganda that she would fight to end human trafficking.

Before being trafficked, Lillian owned a small printing business in Kampala, Uganda and had been struggling to make ends meet. A woman approached her one day and offered her a job in China where she could make more money in a month than she saw in an entire year. When she arrived in China, her passport and visa were taken from her, she was brutally raped, and then forced into prostitution. By the time she was able to escape, she was suffering from severe PTSD and was pregnant. 

“I will never forget the car ride back to our aftercare shelter with Lillian,” Morgan recalls. “She was so grateful to be home and alive. As she shared her story with me, she emphasized how many girls were still suffering in sexual exploitation. ‘There are so many girls there. So so many,’ she cried when she told me. She asked me to help them and on that day in 2011, I promised her that I would do everything in my power to help. I committed myself to ending human trafficking and supporting the recovery and restoration of survivors.”

So, Morgan worked developing a model to combat trafficking until 2015, when the UCI alumna, who has an undergraduate degree in international studies, founded her own nonprofit organization, Willow international. And, in 2021, Willow and another organization with the same mission, 10ThousandWindows, teamed up to form EverFree . Over the years, the organizations have helped thousands of human trafficking survivors heal.

Frustrated with the lack of evidence on what programs were working to support recovery and keep survivors free, Morgan met with the dean of the School of Social Ecology with the hopes of partnering with graduate students a few years ago. Instead, she ended up joining the Ph.D. program in social ecology to develop an assessment tool to ensure survivors have access to the support and resources they need and to help programs measure their impact. With her doctorate in hand next year, Morgan aims to advance the field of international human rights. 

“Human trafficking is a pervasive, global issue impacting more than 40.3 million victims worldwide, with severe implications for its victims,” she stresses. “Globally, victims face significant mental and physical health complications and many experience revictimization. After exiting exploitation, the reintegration process is a long-term, complex process requiring myriad services. Policymakers, funders, and practitioners need sound research to analyze the impact of current victim service programs and to provide practical solutions for protection, prevention, and reintegration. Yet, very few evaluations have ever been conducted and the handful of evaluation tools that do exist do not include survivor input and have significant weaknesses and limitations.”

That’s why Morgan’s dissertation research aims to develop a validated and valuable tool that can guide outcome research, increase outcomes for survivors of human trafficking, and guide policymakers, funders, and practitioners. Her project consists of 3 phases: 

• adaptation of the Poverty Stoplight and validation of indicators for use within the anti-trafficking sector, 
• local adaptation of the validated tool for a pilot, and 
• pilot implementation and study. 

“I love my program at UCI and working with Richard Matthew and Angela Robinson,” says Morgan, who has a 2-and-a-half-year old daughter. “My desire is for every child around the world to be free, safe, and have the opportunity to thrive.” — Story by Mimi Ko Cruz / Video by Han Parker / Photo by Karen Tapia

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Human Trafficking

NIJ funds research on human trafficking and evaluation of promising practices. The overall emphasis for NIJ’s research lies on:

• Strengthening the science of measuring the prevalence of human trafficking
• Preventing trafficking
• Improving the identification, investigation, and prosecution of traffickers
• Identifying best practices for identifying and providing services to victims.

While NIJ focuses on human trafficking as it occurs in the United States, it draws on research findings from around the world. On this page, find links to articles, awards, events, publications, and multimedia related to human trafficking.

• Evaluating Technology-Based Services for Victims of Crime
• Comparing Violent Extremism and Terrorism to Other Forms of Targeted Violence
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Listen to a Podcast on Human Trafficking

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• Practices for Law Enforcement Interviews of Potential Human Trafficking Victims: A Scoping Review
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• Improving Identification, Prevalence Estimation, and Earlier Intervention for Victims of Labor and Sex Trafficking: A Lessons Learned Report
• View related awards
• Find sites with statistics related to: Human trafficking

Find statistics related to human trafficking from the Bureau of Justice Statistics

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The Violence Research at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, welcomes applications from students wishing to undertake PhD research within the Centre's areas of expertise. Graduate students work in the stimulating research environment of the Centre located in the Institute of Criminology under the direction of their supervisor. Violence Research Centre members supervise PhD students in a broad range of topics related to their respective research areas. Please note that we are experiencing a high number of applicants, do read each supervisor's profile carefully before contacting them. Information on PhD studentships at the Institute of Criminology is here .

PhD opportunities with Prof Manuel Eisner

Prof Manuel Eisner  mainly supervises doctoral theses that use a quantitative approach in the following areas: (1) history of violence, (2) causes of aggression and violence, (3) prevention of violence and intervention research, (4) international research on micro- and macro-level predictors of violence. There may also be possibilities to conduct a PhD related to one of his ongoing research projects in the Violence Research Centre. More information on the ongoing projects can be found here .

PhD opportunities with Dr Maria Ttofi

Dr Maria Ttofi  supervises MPhil and PhD students with an interest in quantitative criminology, including youth aggression and violence, juvenile delinquency, systematic/meta-analytic reviews on a variety of psychological criminology topics, programme evaluation and developmental criminology/longitudinal research. Students with a strong methodological background who may be interested in analysing longitudinal data from the CSDD are strongly encouraged to contact her and the Director of the CSDD study, Prof David P. Farrington, directly via email.

PhD opportunities with Dr Paolo Campana

Dr Paolo Campana welcomes proposals from students with an interest in network analysis and organised forms of criminality. The latter includes protection rackets, human trafficking and smuggling, drug trafficking, gangs, cybercrime and possibly terrorist networks. Proposals with a strong network analysis component are welcome. Students are advised to contact Dr Campana by email with a short summary of their research proposal before submitting an application.

PhD opportunities with Dr Justice Tankebe

Dr Justice Tankebe welcomes proposals focused on corruption, policing and police violence, legitimacy, procedural justice, distributive justice, vigilantism and extrajudicial violence, institutional trust, and social order.

Resources for PhD students

More details of the University's PhD programme and procedures for application can be found on the Institute of Criminology's website and the University of Cambridge Graduate Admissions website . A major scholarship is open to potential PhD students of all nationalities. You can find it here .

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Research project

Human Trafficking

Human trafficking is a very topical social problem, which because of both its social and legal complexity, can only be studied in an interdisciplinary way. Combating human trafficking currently features high on national and international policy agendas.

One of the questions research in this area addresses is how current criminalization of human trafficking in the Netherlands (art. 273f Sr) can be analyzed and assessed in the light of the legitimacy of the Dutch criminal law. Furthermore, it is assessed how the extent and nature of labour exploitation can be researched and how effective enforcement of anti-trafficking policies can be ensured. Of course, questions aimed at creating a better understanding of the nature of labour exploitation will also have a prominent place.

Human trafficking takes many forms, of which exploitation in the prostitution sector is best known. However, many other forms of exploitation too fall under the umbrella of human trafficking, including forced domestic servitude, criminal exploitation and labour exploitation.

The interdisciplinary study of human trafficking has led to the formation of an informal working group within Leiden Law School, in which academics from areas of law other than criminal law and criminology participate as well. This newly formed working group collaborates in several publications and research proposals, focusing particularly on forms of exploitation outside the sex industry.

The members of this research cluster have very good relations with many organizations and officials in the field of combating human trafficking. The study of human trafficking is also firmly embedded in the Faculty’s educational program through the elective undergraduate course on Human Trafficking  and an annual post-graduate course Human Trafficking (in cooperation with the Dutch National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings).

Current research projects

Within the research cluster of Human Trafficking, the extent and nature of human trafficking (Masja van Meeteren and Joanne van der Leun) as well as the victims of human trafficking (Maarten Kunst, Charlie Maas and Joanne van der Leun) are currently researched.

In addition, three long-term research projects have been launched:

Criminalisation of trafficking in the context of globalisation and Europeanisation

PhD Candidate: L.B. (Luuk) Esser LL.M

 This PhD research takes the criminalisation of human trafficking in the Netherlands (art. 273f Sr) as a starting point and asks how the legal definition of human trafficking can be analyzed and assessed in the light of international and European law regulations and its positioning within the structure and logic of the national criminal code. The PhD candidate is a researcher at the Dutch National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings and Sexual Violence against Children.

The new face of human trafficking: towards a better understanding of labour exploitation

Since labour exploitation has been criminalised as human trafficking, new cases arise regularly. However, it is unclear exactly how labour exploitation comes about. Which types of labour exploitation exist and how can these be understood? These questions will be answered using a newly developed research approach that focuses on both victims and employers. For more information see www.exploitation-research.org .  

Child sex tourism: A systematic examination of responses against a global problem

PhD candidate: Drs. Anneke Koning (NWO Researchtalent-grant)

Child sex tourism, sexual violence against children abroad, is a dynamic and global problem with devastating consequences for victims. In recent years, nation-states have individually and collectively taken measures to combat this phenomenon. Yet serious concerns have been raised with respect to the effects of these responses, and despite consensus on its hurtful nature, reliable research to guide policy on child sex tourism is scarce. The current study aims to gather and integrate knowledge on the phenomenon of child sex tourism – including its online developments – and responses to address it, so as to inform recommendations on how child sex tourism can be combated more effectively.

Key publications

Tielbaard, N., Meeteren, M. van, Commandeur, X. (2016) Slachtoffer van arbeidsuitbuiting? Een kwalitatieve studie naar ideaaltypische trajecten die leiden tot zelfidentificatie als slachtoffer van mensenhandel, Tijdschrift voor Criminologie  58(2): 37-54

Esser, L.B. & Dettmeijer-Vermeulen, C.  (2016)The Prominent Role of National Judges in Interpreting the International Definition of Human Trafficking, Anti-Trafficking Review , 6: 91–105

Cleiren, C.; Leun, J.P. van der; Meeteren & M. van (2015), Beperkingen aan en dilemma’s van de slachtoffergerichte aanpak van mensenhandel; een blik op arbeidsuitbuiting , Proces, tijdschrift voor strafrechtspleging 94(2): 82-97.

Leun, J.P. van der, Schijndel & A. van (2015), Emerging from the shadows or pushed into the dark? The relation between the combat against Trafficking in Human Beings and Migration Control, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 44(2016): 26–42.

Aronowitz A.A. & Koning A. (2014), Understanding human trafficking as a market system: addressing the demand side of trafficking for sexual exploitation, Revue international des droits penal 85: 669-696.

Klaver J. & Leun J.P. van der (2014), De Verblijfsregeling Mensenhandel in de praktijk: over oneigenlijk gebruik en niet-gebruik, B en M: tijdschrift voor beleid, politiek en maatschappij 41(4): 279-298.

Leun J.P. van der & Schijndel A. van (2012), Uitbuiting uit zicht? Getuigenverklaringen van gesmokkelde migranten nader bekeken aan de hand van indicatoren voor mensenhandel, Tijdschrift voor Veiligheid 11(3): 20-37

Leun J.P. van der (2011), (EU) Migration Policy and Labour Exploitation. In: Rijken C. (Ed.) Combating Trafficking in Human Beings for Labour Exploitation. Nijmegen: Wolf Legal Publishers. 425-440

Contact person

If you would like to know more about research on human trafficking that is conducted at our institute, please contact Masja van Meeteren .

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We have 12 human trafficking PhD Projects, Programmes & Scholarships

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human trafficking PhD Projects, Programmes & Scholarships

Optimising opportunities for victim identification in complex mass fatality incidents, phd research project.

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)

This research project has funding attached. It is only available to UK citizens or those who have been resident in the UK for a period of 3 years or more. Some projects, which are funded by charities or by the universities themselves may have more stringent restrictions.

Supply chain digitalisation: building a sustainable supply chain

Self-funded phd students only.

This project does not have funding attached. You will need to have your own means of paying fees and living costs and / or seek separate funding from student finance, charities or trusts.

What Drives Social Pedagogy?

Endothelial glycocalyx damage as a therapeutic target in sepsis-associated acute kidney injury, ‘vulnerabilities’ and ‘capabilities’ within the context of protracted displacement crises, investigating the cellular functions of trappc9 in brain development and microcephaly, cancer cells ‘feed’ on extracellular matrix components under starvation conditions: how can they do it, virology: unique antiviral therapy targeting zika and related viruses, translational studies into molecular mechanisms underlying parkinson's disease, funded phd project (students worldwide).

This project has funding attached, subject to eligibility criteria. Applications for the project are welcome from all suitably qualified candidates, but its funding may be restricted to a limited set of nationalities. You should check the project and department details for more information.

Targeting glycans on the outside of cells, as new therapeutics

Investigate cytoskeletal networks controlling cancer cell migration at the systems level., self-funded msc r- understanding tumour-mediated suppression of cytotoxic t cell function by rebuilding suppression in vitro.

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5 Master’s Programs Focused on Human Trafficking

M.a. in human trafficking, migration and organized crime.

St. Mary’s University in Twickenham, London, UK, offers a Master’s program in Human Trafficking, Migration, and Organized Crime. This 12-month program is an interdisciplinary study of human trafficking, migratory flows, forced labor, and organized crime, looking at the issues from social, political, legal, and economic perspectives. Students also complete a dissertation or work-based research report. St. Mary’s also offers opportunities to work through their research center, the Centre for the Study of Modern Slavery.

Prospective students must have an undergraduate degree or equivalent in a related field. Tuition for UK/EU students is £6,000/year. Tuition for international students is £13,650/year. Funding and scholarships are available for students with need- and merit-based eligibility. This program is ideal for students wishing to pursue careers in nonprofit or government organizations working to combat human trafficking, as well as students wishing to pursue further research through a doctoral degree and those working in private, health, and social work sectors on the frontlines with potential victims.

Do you want to pursue a career in human rights?

Our eBook “ Launching Your Career in Human Rights ” is an in-depth resource designed for those committed to pursuing a career in the human rights field. It covers a wide range of topics, including the types of careers available, the necessary skills and competencies, and the educational pathways that can lead to success in this sector. Whether you’re considering a master’s degree, looking for your first job, or exploring specific human rights issues, this guide offers valuable insights and practical advice. It’s a helpful tool for anyone looking to understand the complexities of working in human rights and how to effectively navigate the challenges and opportunities that come with this important work. Learn more .

M.A. in International Human Rights

The University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies in Denver, Colorado, USA, offers a Master’s program in International Human Rights with a concentration option in Forced Labor, Human Trafficking and Human Rights. This 2-year, full time program focuses on human rights issues from a multidisciplinary perspective, covering topics of economic development, gender, security, administration, and more. As part of this program, students can apply to work with the University of Denver’s Human Trafficking Center, a research and advocacy organization that partners with organizations and lawmakers to influence policy and gather data.

Applicants of the program must have an undergraduate degree or equivalent. Tuition for all students is $28,752/year. Scholarships and fellowships are available to Master’s students, and the graduate school site provides a list of external scholarships available. Students in this degree program typically pursue careers with non-profits, advocacy organizations, government agencies, intergovernmental organizations, law firms, and academic institutions.

M.A. in International Policy and Development

The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in Monterey, California, USA, offers a Master’s degree in International Policy and Development with a specialization option in Migration, Trafficking, and Human Security. This 2-year program offers courses and seminars on various issues related to international development and policy, including theoretical coursework and applied research and practicum.

Prospective students must have an undergraduate degree or equivalent and must submit a resume, various essays, a letter of recommendation, and a personal scholarship statement along with other required materials and a video interview. Tuition is $39,590/year for all students. A wide variety of need- and merit-based scholarships and fellowships are available to students. Most graduates of this program work in international organizations, government agencies, intergovernmental organizations, and nonprofits. The specialization in Migration, Trafficking, and Human Security provides knowledge, research, and skills to prepare students to work with these specific issues in their future careers.

M.A. in International Development Studies / Graduate Certificate in Global Gender Policy

George Washington University Elliot School of International Affairs in Washington, DC, USA, offers a Master’s degree in International Development Studies and a graduate certificate in Global Gender Policy, which both offer opportunities for in-depth study in human trafficking and related issues. The Master’s degree is a 2-years program with an interdisciplinary approach to issues relating to international development and policy. The graduate certificate requires 15 credits to complete.

Applicants are required to a have an undergraduate degree or equivalent, as well as GRE scores. Tuition per credit is $1825 for all students, and the Elliot school requires a $900/semester fee. GWU and the Elliot School offer several merit-based fellowships and scholarships for students. The majority of graduates of this program work in nonprofits, with others working in government organizations and private sector companies.

M.A. in International Social Work and Social Development

The University of Bedfordshire in Grantham, UK, offers a Master’s program in International Social Work and Social Development that has a variety of opportunities to learn about human trafficking and related topics. This 12-month program covers a range of international policy and development issues, along with courses on practical skills and research methods. Students must complete a dissertation to complete the degree program.

Applicants must have an undergraduate program or equivalent and a professional social work qualification or comparative academic and/or volunteer work. Tuition for all students is £8,250/year. Several merit-based scholarships are available to UK/EU and international students. Program graduates often pursue careers in social work, nonprofit and humanitarian organizations, and research and advocacy institutions.

More Masters in Human Rights for your consideration.

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About the author, allison reefer.

Allison Reefer is a young professional living in Pittsburgh, PA. She works with a refugee resettlement agency to help refugees and immigrants in the city, and she volunteers with a local shelter for human trafficking victims. She obtained her Master in International Development from the University of Pittsburgh and a BA in Writing from Geneva College, focusing most of her academic work on human trafficking and migration in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In her free time, she loves to write, read, sing and play bass guitar, practice Russian, and explore her city.

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UNO Researchers Lead In-Depth Study on Labor Trafficking in Nebraska

• published: 2024/09/03
• contact: Debbie Vihstadt - College of Public Affairs and Community Service
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• email:   [email protected]

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