Human Trafficking Research Lab @Augustana University

I was asked to participate in an Online Seminar Series on Doing Gender and Politics Research in Challenging Times and Environments sponsored by the Standing Group on Gender and Politics at the  the European Consortium for Political Research. The overall goal of seminar series is discuss how feminist research can thrive in increasingly challenging environments offering a space for collective reflection on the practical, methodological, ethical, emotional, and political dimensions of conducting feminist research today. My talk will be on December and the panel is titled "Researching War Zones and Military Institutions: Reflexivity, Care and Safety." The series consist of four thematic sessions, each with three short talks and plenty of time for discussion and sharing of experiences showcasing the latest thinking in the study of environmental politics, delivered by group members and special guests, followed by a moderated discussion. Researching Hostile Environments and Actors:...

After finishing the literature review, adding the data from the interviews and putting the interview information into the methods sections, I sent the recruitment article off to my co-authors. It is nice to get another article sent out (in a way) since there is nothing more I can do without the Telegram data from my co-authors. Since my book is with the copy editor and I am waiting on chapter page proofs I have a little extra time to start some reading for another article based on our NSF study data.  In the interviews with Ukrainian victim service organizations we asked people about help seeking and referrals for social services during war. We believe that between the interview data, Telegram data and hotline data we have enough for a standalone article that can examine how people fleeing war access assistance for human trafficking. I started working on the literature review for this article which is a good first step to knowing what research is out there on how refugees access so...

Over the past few weeks I have been able to attend different events and meet anti-trafficking stakeholders in South Dakota. It is hard to start over again in a new state where people are not familiar with your work but having served on different task forces in Kansas, Georgia, and Illinois, I am confident that I can make some good connections for our research and for guest speakers in my human trafficking class. Last Tuesday I attended Call to Freedom's CommUNITY Breakfast and was able to listen to the Governor Larry Rhoden and Attorney General Marty Jackley speak about trafficking. The breakfast in Sioux Falls brought around 1200 other community members to raise awareness to the work of Call to Freedom a local anti-trafficking NGO in South Dakota. It was mainly a fundraiser but it was interesting to hear stories from a survivor who worked at Call to Freedom and see some of their work.  They had a slide that said that according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline in 2023...

Got up early this morning to attend the September Anti-Trafficking Task Force meeting in Ukraine (Зустріч Оперативної групи з протидії торгівлі людьми). It was especially interesting meeting since we talked about the newly adopted state programme and talking human trafficking policies in Ukraine is one of my favorite topics! The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the State Targeted Social Program to Combat Human Trafficking until 2030 ( Державна цільова соціальна програма протидії торгівлі людьми на період до 2030 року ) on September 3, 2026.  The new programme promotes a trauma-informed approach where victims/survivors will no longer have to repeatedly recount their experiences to various government agencies because a unified system for data sharing will be established. There will also be an expansion of the network of support centers for victims and increased efforts to combat labor, sexual, and other forms of exploitation. Some of the key components of the program include ...

One thing that no one ever tells you about academic research is that you often bounce around from one project to the next based on different deadlines and more pressing needs. This week for me that means picking up on the literature review that I was working on for our online recruitment during war article back in May. Since I traveled with students, moved for a new job, and turned in the final round of revisions for my book I was busy all summer working on other things. Then I got a revise and resubmit on another article which pushed that to the front of my research queue, so it ended up being almost three months before I could come back to this literature review.  Thankfully I left good notes for myself about where I left off reading the literature so I can easily pick things back up...now I just have to remember what all of the literature said (but thankfully I wrote notes on that for myself too). Sometimes going back and forth between projects feels a little like whip lash and ...

  Since I moved to South Dakota I have been meeting with different anti-trafficking stakeholders working to build connections and introduce people to the lab. I was interested in joining the South Dakota East River Human Trafficking Task Force and learning more about their initiatives. Sadly the email came back returned but after a little bit of research I found the organization that used to run the task force and emailed them for a meeting. I met with them this week and learned a bit about the history of the two task forces East River and West River with the separation line of the Missouri River in the middle of the state. The East River Task Force meets twice a year in person in January and June. Previously they had subcommittees that were very active but only one focused on the trafficking of children is still active. They have to look into the bylaws to see how to appoint an individual but hopefully it will work out so I can be appointed as a representative from the Human Traff...

I am so excited to be returning to classes at Millikin and to my work at the Human Trafficking Research Lab, now located at Augustana University! With me staying at Millikin and Dr. Dean moving to Augustana, there has definitely been a transition period, but I can feel that we are getting back into the swing of things as the new school year settles in.  I have completed pulling and categorizing articles from the Chicago Sun Times and have moved on to the Springfield State-Journal Register. It’s interesting already to see how different these two newspapers are. I have noticed that much of the coverage from the Chicago Sun Times regarding Human Trafficking is related to the crime itself, while more of the Springfield State-Journal Register articles have focused on prevention and community leaders. I’ve been reflecting a lot on the opportunity I had to attend the inaugural Statewide Human Trafficking Conference in Peoria in May, just before the end of last semester. Attending the conf...