Celebrating human trafficking research on World Day Against Trafficking in Persons

President Reynolds featured the Human Trafficking Research Lab as one of the four performance learning opportunities at Millikin University in his state of the university speech last May. This got lab members thinking about the uniqueness of the lab in the United States and the opportunities we provide for hands on research with a complex topic topic such as human trafficking. So the HTRL's newest research assistant Maggie Schrage's first job assignment was conducting an investigation on other research entities focused on human trafficking around the United States. Here is what she found:

I was tasked with compiling data on other academic institutions conducting research on human trafficking. After many hours of researching and contacting universities across the United States, I located many legal clinics that help survivors of human trafficking with legal issues in the United States but there were fewer that focused on academic research. I found that the Human Trafficking Research Lab at Millikin University is one of 35 academic based human trafficking research institutions in the United States.

It is one of four human trafficking research institutions that is open to students and it is the only lab that employs students strictly at the undergraduate level in the United States. Stanford University, University of Georgia, and Brown University are all have research assistants at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, but Millikin is the only one completely devoted to undergraduate student research assistants.

In areas of research collaborations with non-profit organizations, government entities, and academic based institutions, the HTRL is the lone human trafficking research lab in the entirety of the state of Illinois and one of eight in the entire Midwest. We were surprised to find many research and flagship universities had research centers or parts of centers devoted to human trafficking but found that the HTRL is also only undergraduate focused private university that has a research entity devoted to human trafficking in the United States.

This truly makes the HTRL unique not only in our region but now we know just how unique these undergraduate research opportunities are in the United States!

In recognition of World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, I encourage you to look at the 33 other university research programs and further your education from many new perspectives from the list below!  

  1. Human Trafficking Collaborative at the University of Michigan  
  2. Stanford University Human Trafficking Data Lab 
  3. Trafficking in Persons Risk to Resilience Lab at the University of South Florida 
  4. Human Trafficking and Vulnerable Populations Research Lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  5. Center for the Study of Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery at the University of Central Florida  
  6. Human Trafficking Vulnerability Lab: Partnership between University of California-Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, and York University in Canada   
  7. Human Trafficking Research Initiative at the University of Louisville 
  8. The Program on Human Trafficking and Forced Labor at American University  
  9. University of California Berkeley Law Anti-Trafficking Project 
  10. Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute at the University of Toledo 
  11. Center on Human Trafficking Research and Outreach at the University of Georgia 
  12. Institute of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault at University of Texas at Austin 
  13. Violence and Justice Research Lab at Northeastern University 
  14. Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking Initiative at University of Kansas 
  15. The Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University 
  16. Project NO REST at the University of South Carolina 
  17. Center for Human Trafficking Research and Training at the University of Southern Mississippi
  18. Sex Trafficking Intervention Research at Arizona State University
  19. The Global Center on Human Trafficking at Montclair State University 
  20. Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University  
  21. The Human Trafficking Community Research Hub at William James College 
  22. Bowling Green State University’s Labor Trafficking Education and Research Initiative 
  23. The Sex Trafficking Analytics For Network Detection and Disruption at the University of Alabama 
  24. Partners Against Exploitation at the University of San Diego 
  25. Coalition for Research and Education Against Trafficking and Exploitation at Nova Southeastern University 
  26. The Anti-Human Trafficking Research and Policy Development program at the University of Washington 
  27. Human Trafficking & Health Equity Academic Collaborative at Northern Kentucky University 
  28. The Human Trafficking Data Research Project at Southern Methodist University 
  29. The Human Trafficking Initiative at Creighton University  
  30. Program on Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking at Harvard University 
  31. The Human Trafficking Initiative at John Hopkins University 
  32. The University of Maryland’s Safe Center for Human Trafficking Survivors 
  33. Sex Trading, Trafficking, and Community Well-Being Initiative at the University of Minnesota
  34. The Center of Research Excellence to Counter Human Trafficking (CRECHT) 

We also found several legal clinics which we wanted to include but they are focused on legal assistance and do not conduct academic research. This is not an exhaustive list and if you would like to be added please email Dr. Dean at the HTRL.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests

Human Trafficking Awareness Month Panel Discussion on Education

Community Assessment for the Central Illinois Human Trafficking Task Force