Human Trafficking Research Lab @Millikin

July 30 is World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. It is a day proclaimed in 2013 by the United Nations General Assembly in resolution A/RES/68/192. The day aims to “raise awareness of the situation of victims of human trafficking and for the promotion and protection of their rights.” We usually post something on the HTRL blog today about our work in recognition of this day but this year with all of the discussions on human traffickers in the media and budget cuts to the trafficking work around the world I have felt nothing but dread and apprehension about the future of the movement. The United States has been the leader in the anti-trafficking movement and has made counter trafficking a policy priority since the bi-partisan adoption of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) in 2000, devoting resources and chronicling progress and setbacks around the world through the Trafficking in Persons Report. As I wrote about in a previous article the TVPA built the foundation for traffi...

I was asked to present my research project "Identifying Potential Human Trafficking Recruitment during Humanitarian Disasters and Russia’s War in Ukraine" with colleagues from Worcester Polytechnic Institute while I am here in Regensburg as a Visiting Fellow at the The Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS). The event was sponsored by the Leibniz Science Campus Regensburg, Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS), Regensburg, University of Regensburg, “Denkraum Ukraine” / “Think Space Ukraine” funded by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) with funds from the Federal Foreign Office (AA). We only had a week to put the event together but I had a great turnout and discussion on our research project. I explored some preliminary findings from our dataset on online recruitment technologies during the first 1.5 years of the war consisting of: 482,000 collected and cleaned online posts from Telegram channels Interview data from Uk...

I found out a few weeks ago that the Illinois State Police (ISP) Division of Criminal Investigation Trafficking Enforcement Bureau was moving to Decatur. This is great news for our city because it means the main labor trafficking organization in the Illinois the Legal Aid Society of Metropolitan Family Services has an office is located in Decatur, the state's only research entity focused on human trafficking is here (the Human Trafficking Research Lab), and and now the main policing entity will also be based in Decatur. ISP also recently announced that a multiagency task force is being formed to combat human trafficking in Central Illinois and will base its operations in Decatur. The Illinois Trafficking Enforcement Group, will be led by the Illinois State Police and include the Decatur Police Department and the McLean County Sheriff's Office as partnering organizations. This group was approved by the The Decatur City Council sand you can read more about it in this story from t...

Starting my month long visiting fellow residency at IOS at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies/Leibniz-Institut für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung (IOS) in Regensburg Germany. I will be working on our NSF funded research project on human trafficking recruitment in Ukraine during Russia's war. The Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS) is one of the largest and most traditional non-university research institutions of its kind in Germany—it dates back to 1930. I am looking forward to lots of data analysis, networking, and having the opportunity to use the amazing library here. I found out they only choose 15 fellows a year so it is an honor to be here and the first time I have ever lived in the western part of Europe.