Human Trafficking Research Lab @Millikin

My week of talks continues and on Thursday one of my colleagues who taught in Ukraine Fall 2021 organized a virtual conference at Millikin University on "Restorative Justice in Action: What Comes After Victory in Ukraine?" co-sponsored by Kyiv Polytechnic Institute located in Kyiv, Ukraine  The conference featured several practitioners, teachers and scholars of restorative justice, conflict resolution and mediation programs to discuss potential post-war restorative justice strategies that might be used in Ukraine. It was great to practice my Ukrainian and talk about human trafficking dynamics as a result of Russia's war in Ukraine. I also brought my card making supplies, Ukrainian candy, and a giant handmade Ukrainian flag. It was great to learn more about restorative justice in Ukraine!

I raced back from Kansas and drove over to the University of Illinois to attend a lecture by human trafficking survivor and advocate Cyntoia Brown Long. Back in 2018 the first panel discussion we organized for Human Trafficking Awareness Month at Millikin showed part of the documentary about her life sentence in prison for killing the man that bought her for sex when she was 16 years old.  We wrote postcards to Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam to grant her clemency and her 67 year sentence was commuted on August 7, 2019. It was so wonderful to meet her in real life and see her freed from prison.  She even signed my book which she co-wrote with Millikin English alum Bethany Mauger!

This week I gave a talk at the Lawrence Public Library as part of the Perspectives on Ukraine series, a partnership between the University of Kansas Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies (CREES) and Lawrence Public Library. I take the job of researching Ukraine and telling Ukrainian stories very seriously and it was an honor to kick off the series with my talk and stand with Ukrainians against Russian aggression. I bought Ukrainian chocolates (since it was Valentine's Day) and we made Valentine's Day cards to send to Ukrainian survivors of gender-based violence to show our support. My talk addressed how Russia’s war has exacerbated human trafficking in Ukraine, including child begging, forced labor and sex trafficking. She discussed how wartime conditions have created vulnerabilities for women and children using data from interviews with anti-trafficking advocates and participant observation at centers for displaced persons in Ukraine and refugee reception ce

Every time we complete an assessment for the Central Illinois Human Trafficking Task Force for the Department of Justice grant we present it to the task force members at one of the task force general membership bi-monthly meetings. Then we also send the assessment to them to read over and hold a listening session where they can provide more feedback. While we finished the assessment and presented it at the November meeting, due to the holidays and a busy January with human trafficking awareness month events we pushed this listening session back to February. The goal of the assessment is to produce the reports and then create feedback loops with task force members where they feel empowered to offer changes and additions based on their experience working with human trafficking. We had almost 20 members attend the listening session and gathered useful recommendations of things to add to the assessment before we send it on the Department of Justice as a requirement of the grant. 

Over winter break I worked to analyze data from a survey for the Human Trafficking Research Lab's consulting work with Prevent Child Abuse Illinois. They asked us to take a survey they performed themselves and analyze the findings. It was most definitely a lot of work, but just like anything else I’ve done for the research lab, I found this work to be very rewarding. Basically I took the survey data and analyzed it in SPSS a statistical software program and put it into cross tabulations which calculated frequencies and percentages for all the data points. Then I wrote up the findings explaining what the data was telling us. I also coded the qualitative responses looking for overarching themes in the data and calculated those responses including interesting quotes and findings from the data. Surprisingly, the respondents were not very familiar with many aspects of child abuse. I didn’t necessarily expect any of the respondents to be experts on the issue, but there was a good chunk o

Our sixth annual Human Trafficking Awareness Month panel discussion on legal approaches made the local news on January 31st! Thanks to WAND for the in-depth coverage and discussion of how human trafficking manifests in Central Illinois. Also the Human Trafficking Research Lab was featured and it is wonderful to see my student-faculty collaborative research on the news. You can watch the clip  here .

We held our Sixth Annual Panel Discussion for Human Trafficking Awareness Month again this January 2023 at Millikin University! We were lucky again to partner with Set Free-Macon County and had a great mix of local advocates and students at the panel discussion. This year we focused on legal approaches to human trafficking focusing on federal and state level prosecutions and the manifestations of this crime in Central Illinois. We has some great lawyers on the panel including: Gregory K. Harris, United States Attorney for the Central District of Illinois, Dan Wright, Sangamon County States Attorney, and Katrina Quillen, Supervising Attorney, Legal Aid Society of Metropolitan Family Services. We focused on the different challenges with human trafficking law that can help or hinder holding traffickers accountable for this crime in the United States legal system and improvements for representing human trafficking victims in immigration law. We also had a giant cake celebrating five years