Human Trafficking Research Lab @Augustana University

Last summer Aimable Ngabo was awarded an Undergraduate Research Fellowship from Millikin University to conduct research on the adjudication of human trafficking cases in Central Illinois. Millikin's PR team caught up with him recently in the Human Trafficking Research Lab and they talked about his research, future plans, and the benefits of student and faculty collaborative research. We will be presenting our preliminary research findings at the Midwest Political Science Association Conference and then Ngabo will also present a poster at the Judith & G. Richard Locke Poster Symposium as part of Day of Scholarship at Millikin. It's been a busy spring semester in the Human Trafficking Research Lab! Here is the story to learn more about Ngabo and our current research project. 

The second peer-reviewed article to come out of the Human Trafficking was finally published with a research assistant as a co-author Julisa Sierra. The work for this article "Multi-Sector Human Trafficking Task Forces in the United States: Typologies and Overlapping Jurisdictions" began in 2018 with the support of a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) at Millikin University which funded Julisa's work. After numerous revisions the article was accepted in late 2021in the Journal of Modern Slavery and then it was finally available in early March. This article focuses on the development and cooperation of human trafficking task forces, anti-trafficking institutions established to combat human trafficking around the US. We use task force as an encompassing term for over 200 human trafficking multi-sector coalitions, working groups, and/or commissions throughout all 50 states at different levels of jurisdiction. Our research determines the origin, scope, and variati...

Our fifth annual Human Trafficking Awareness Month panel discussion at Millikin University was covered by our local newspaper in Decatur, the Herald and Review and a colleague sent me a picture of the published story in the newspaper below. I am very thankful that the reporter took time to cover this topic and listen to my critiques of media coverage on human trafficking. He also published the Human Trafficking Hotline number at the bottom of the story and said he would continue to include in other stories on human trafficking in the future.   Here  is the online version of the story if you would like to read about our event. The panel discussion was covered by the Millikin University public relations department and you can read that story  here . Thanks to everyone for raising awareness to this issue during Human Trafficking Awareness Month!

We just wrapped up our fifth annual Human Trafficking Awareness Month panel discussion at Millikin University and the event was a huge success. Around 40 students, faculty, staff and community members came out before the big snow storm to learn about the intersections of human trafficking education and training. We hosted Matthew Fuller, Human Trafficking Training Specialist at the Center for Prevention of Abuse in Peoria, Cindy Kuro, Prevention Educator from the Set Free Movement-Macon County, and Cheris Larson, Program Manager at Project OZ in Bloomington. The panel discussion focused on the educational opportunities, prevailing pedagogies on human trafficking, challenges to teaching about this hidden crime, and how to combat disinformation through learning opportunities. The panel discussion was sponsored by the Set Free Movement-Macon County and the Department History and Political Science at Millikin University. We are thankful for our wonderful advocates and educators in Central ...

On January 18th 2022, I accompanied Dr. Laura Dean, Millikin students, and community members to the Decatur City Council meeting. The purpose of our visit to the city council was to read the Human Trafficking Awareness Month Declaration, I was lucky enough to be designated to read it for the whole council and broadcast live on public access television around the city. Since 2010, the President of the United States has dedicated the month of January as human trafficking awareness month. The month in geared towards general education events with the public on how to identify and help prevent these crimes both domestically and abroad.  Unfortunately, the population of Decatur has little knowledge on human trafficking so having the proclamation of Human Trafficking Awareness Month being read in the City Council is a great opportunity for city’s population to learn about this crime. This is because the city hall meetings are broadcasted on local TV public access channels which helps spre...

All of the details are set for our annual Human Trafficking Awareness Month talk. Every year we pick a different theme to cover regarding human trafficking and with the emphasis on education and training lately we thought this would be a good to discuss. This is the fifth year of our panel discussion and we are bringing in educators and trainers on human trafficking from Peoria, Bloomington, and Decatur. We will discuss prevailing pedagogies on human trafficking, challenges to teaching about this hidden crime and how to combat disinformation through educational opportunities. The panel discussion is sponsored by the Set Free Movement-Macon County and the Department History and Political Science at Millikin University. We are thankful for our wonderful advocates and educators in Central Illinois who take time out of their busy schedules to come and speak with Millikin students and the community. Panelists: Matthew Fuller Human Trafficking Training Specialist, Center for Prevention o...

Last semester I was enrolled in Dr. Dean’s Human Trafficking class, as well as working for the research lab. At the end of the semester, our final project was to make Millikin a slavery free campus as a class. This project was one I was very excited for since Dr. Dean told us about it in the beginning of the semester. To start the project, our class began to brainstorm about the different groups on our campus that may be unknowingly contributing to slavery. Once we had these groups, apparel, food service, human resources, and administration, we each signed up for the group that we wanted to investigate.  I signed up for the administration group, and we began to brainstorm who we should speak with on our campus. We used the University of Nottingham’s “The Slavery-Free Campus: A blueprint for university action against modern slavery” to begin our brainstorming. We decided that the most effective way to do this project would be to schedule interviews the head of Public Safety, the dir...