Human Trafficking Research Lab @Millikin

When I moved to Central Illinois in 2016 one of the biggest worries I had about moving there was the lack of human trafficking community. In Atlanta, I left one of the longest serving task forces in the United States with an excellent infrastructure and organization sponsored by the Governor's Office in Georgia. It took me a few years to find those connections in Central Illinois and many of them had to be created from scratch.  In 2017, I heard about the establishment of a new task force in Central Illinois by State' Attorney Greg Harris at the Department of Justice Office in Springfield and so I wrote asking to be able to contribute. Advocating and using my research with practical applications was something I missed since moving to Illinois and I was really thankful to be on the ground floor with this newly formed task force! The picture above was my first meeting at the DOJ Office in Springfield and this meeting started eight years of collaboration and advocacy in the region...

  Today, I attended the Protection Cluster's Anti-Trafficking Task Force (ATTF) in Ukraine. This is an online meeting that due to funding cuts with USAID and the war has not met since November 2024. So even though I am in the middle of moving I made it a priority to attend and learn about the recent updates to anti-trafficking work in Ukraine. We learned about developments with the State Programme on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings until 2030. It was interesting to hear how the program is aimed at European Union membership and integration commitments. There are special mentions in the program for recruitment in online spaces and the use of online networks by traffickers which was particularly interesting for our research.  We also had a presentation on the different human trafficking cases assisted by the IOM Mission in Ukraine and its Partners in 2024–2025. It was very interesting to see differences throughout the war specifically that more people are exploited in Ukrai...

We had a virtual Central Illinois Human Trafficking Task Force meeting today where Cassidy took the minutes. It was nice to see people who I met at the Illinois Statewide Human Trafficking Conference last week in Peoria and talk about recent trends that service providers are seeing. We also discussed the leadership transition as I am moving to South Dakota and the Center for Prevention of Abuse is going to help the Legal Aid Society of Metropolitan Family Services Office in Decatur run the task force in the future. I am sad to be moving onto other locations but it was a nice send off after eight years of serving on the CIHTTF and running the meetings for almost three years of that time. It definitely felt like I was one of the longest serving members but I know I am leaving the task force in good hands. 

This week we attended the first ever Illinois Statewide Human Trafficking Conference in Peoria. It was a great educational and networking opportunity. The conference was organized by the Children's Advocacy Centers of Illinois (CACI), Illinois State Police Investigations, Illinois Department of Human Services, and Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. The Human Trafficking Research Lab was also asked to present on the Central Illinois Human Trafficking Task Force (CIHTTF) and some of the adjudication research we conducted in the lab. The panel "Lunch & Local Task Force Overview" introduced conference attendees to various task forces in the state, including two OVC-funded Enhanced Collaborative Model task forces, one statewide task force, one task force overseen by a local mayor's office, and one task force covering central Illinois.  The conference was attended by over 300 anti-trafficking advocates around the state and I was able to meet many of t...

This semester, I continued my work as an assistant researcher at the Human Trafficking Research Lab. In January, we kicked off the semester by attending a Decatur City Council meeting, where I had the opportunity to read and present a proclamation recognizing Human Trafficking Awareness Month to the mayor. Throughout the semester, I have worked on collecting articles from throughout Illinois dealing with human trafficking cases for our ongoing research project on the effect of media portrayal on human trafficking legislation.   In March, Millikin hosted a meeting of the Central Illinois Human Trafficking Task Force. I had the opportunity to hear professionals from various fields speak about human trafficking prevention and to network in-person with members of the task force. To cap off the year, we will be attending and presenting at the Illinois Human Trafficking Training Conference in Peoria on May 5th and 6th. It has been a successful year, and I am so excited to continue m...

While I wait for my next round of book revisions I am starting work on the next article in our NSF project that looks at online human trafficking recruitment during Russia's war in Ukraine. This article analyzes the suspicious Telegram data and compares that to interviews from anti-trafficking stakeholders focusing on recruitment dynamics in Ukraine during the full-scale invasion. We examine what recruitment looks like during the war in Ukraine. I am working on the literature review now and it's so interesting to see all of the publications on recruitment that have been published since we started work on this project in 2023.  In the data we compiled on recruitment we found that approximately 15.5% of the total messages on the different Telegram groups were suspicious and could be potential cases of recruitment for human trafficking. The article discusses the array of suspicious recruitment messages that we found in the Telegram Groups including posts over the first 18 month’s ...

We attended Take Back the Night last night at the Decatur Public Library hosted by our local organization Growing Strong Sexual Assault Center. We tabled to support survivors and this local organization while raising awareness and money to support student research assistants in the lab. Take Back The Night is a global mission to end all forms of sexual violence, including sexual assault, sexual abuse, trafficking, stalking, gender harassment, and relationship violence, and to support survivors in their healing journeys . They had an open mix for survivor to chare their stories or read poetry, a crafting station with friendship bracelets, a photo booth, and information about sexual violence. The theme this year was together we rise and looked to promote the voices of local survivors. I was able to see several Millikin students and supporters that I knew from the community. I was also able to hear from a friend and local survivor about the exploitation and abuse she experienced in Macon ...