Finding Graduate Programs to do Human Trafficking Research

I spent this fall applying to return to graduate school to obtain my Masters and conduct research on human trafficking. New research will be necessary for improving our understanding and ability to combat trafficking.

Some great research has been done already. Last October, I attended the First Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. The call for papers for the Second Annual Conference has already been posted, and this is a tremendous opportunity to learn about some of the research efforts that are already going on in the field of trafficking and meet academics from institutions which may interest you.

I thought for this post, however, that I would share some of my experiences searching for graduate programs that I felt would be helpful to those of our readers who are considering the same options for continuing their education. I will add the caveat that I did not search very much outside of the U.S. so this post will be focused mostly on U.S. Institutions. This post will also likely require multiple parts in order to outline some of the different considerations that probably will go into a decision on a graduate program. Today, let's focus on some obvious suggestions: Look for schools that already have scholars and research centers with a focus on human trafficking.

If you're considering following a specific researcher/professor, here are some people to consider:

Dr. Ato Qauyson, University of Toronto: Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies. Organized the conference The Commodification of Illicit Flows.

Professor Claude d'Estree, University of Denver: Lecturer in the DU Josef Korbel School of International Studies (JKSIS) and Executive Director of the Human Trafficking Clinic, Prof. d'Estree is also a Senior Advisor to Colorado Task Force on Human Trafficking.

Dr. Mohamed Mattar, Johns Hopkins University: Executive Director of the Protection Project, Dr. Mattar has worked in over 50 countries to promote state compliance with international human rights standards and has advised governments on drafting and implementing anti-trafficking legislation.

Dr. Sheldon Zhang, San Diego State University: Professor and Department Chair of Sociology, Dr. Zhang's recent publications include "Beyond the 'Natasha' Story" and Smuggling and Trafficking in Human Beings: All Roads Lead to America.

Professor Amy Farrell, Northeastern University: Assistant Professor of College of Criminal Justice and Associate Director of the Institute on Race and Justice, she has recently conducted research on local law enforcement responses to human trafficking and is currently leading the development of a national human trafficking data collection program for the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Professor Jacqueline Bhabha, Harvard University: Jeremiah Smith Jr. Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School, the Director of the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies, and a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School, she is currently working on issues of child migration, smuggling and trafficking, and citizenship.

Dr. Thomas Steinfatt, Miami University: Professor of Communication Studies, his research on trafficking in women and children has been funded by USAID and is used by the U.S. State Department in combating human trafficking in Cambodia.

Dr. Mary Burke, Carlow University: Dr. Mary Burke is a faculty member in the Psychology Department at Carlow University where she is the Director of Training for the Doctoral Program in Counseling Psychology. She also serves as Executive Director of the Project to End Human Trafficking.

Professor Louise Shelley, George Mason University: Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, her expertise in transnational crime and corruption includes money laundering and illicit financial flows, human smuggling and trafficking and national security issues.

Dr. Denise Brennan, Georgetown University: Associate Professor of Anthropology, her research focuses on urgent human rights concerns as trafficking, women’s poverty, and migrant labor exploitation.

Dr. Richard Estes, University of Pennsylvania: Professor of Social Work and Director of the School's International Programs, he also is a specialist on issues related to social and economic development, poverty, and the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Schools with specific research centers on trafficking:

Johns Hopkins
University of Denver

Another way to find schools and scholars in the field is to do your homework:

• Pay attention to the authors of reports or articles you read about trafficking. See if the author teaches at any graduate programs or works frequently with one university.
• Look to see if any academic departments or professors take part in local task forces or assist trafficking victim service providers.
• Pay attention to names (authors or quoted experts) in books you read about trafficking. With which university is he/she affiliated?
  

For the next post, we will look at other considerations when trying to identify the right school to match your research interests in human trafficking.

Old Slavery v. Modern Day Slavery Part III

Part of the Human Trafficking Students' series on HTP

By Ashley Keller
Old Slavery v. Modern Day Slavery Part III (Conclusion)

Take Action
There are different national and international organizations for disabled persons. These organizations are made up of people with and without disabilities. While this is good news, sadly, this is new. Groups and organizations in the past have not thought to have disabled persons on their committees, which again leaves this population without a voice. These new integrated and accessible groups and organizations are using their insight to help implement accessible programs, or change existing programs in order to make them accessible. They are doing this by diversifying environments, i.e. taking a multicultural, multi-gender, multi-ability approach to problems and ideas.

There is also a greater urgency to educate and train the general public. This allows people to better understand and appreciate this population of people. It is very important for everyone to know that whether someone is disabled or not, they are all still people and they most definitely have value. They deserve the same human rights as those without disabilities. Unfortunately there is not much information out there on human trafficking and the disabled. Awareness is required in regards to human trafficking, but when this entire population is overlooked and left without a voice; people are not getting the whole story. This population needs to be brought up in conversations, classrooms, websites and statistics.

As Human Rights Watch notes “disabled women and girls face the same spectrum of human rights abuses that non-disabled women face, but their social isolation and dependence magnifies these abuses and their consequences”. This is a real problem and these people need our help as much as the men, women and children who are drug into this dark reality by force, fraud or coercion.

We need to give this population a voice, if possible, and if not, be the voice they so desperately need. The media can do this by reporting on this ugly truth through pictures, articles and documentaries. The media needs to make it known that this issue is alive and it is everywhere, not just in some far off country. While many countries have taken strides to criminalize human trafficking they continually fail to prosecute these perpetrators. Through research it was noted that most individuals detained in relation to human trafficking are released by the time a trial or sentencing arrives for “time served”.

There needs to be collaboration and cooperation between many different government and non-government agencies in order to bring light to this seemingly overlooked topic within the larger picture of modern slavery. Law Enforcement, families, cultures, hospitals, education agencies, and prosecutors all need to understand the ramifications of their beliefs and actions, or lack thereof. By working together, which is a feat in and of itself, fewer and fewer individuals will fall through the cracks.

As the great Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “to ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it”. We, as moral, rational and reasoning beings, cannot allow these people to be swept under the rug and forgotten any longer.

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Ashley received her B.A. in Psychology from Immaculata University this past semester. She has worked with individuals with autism for about 10 years and is currently working as an ABA therapist doing Early Intense Behavioral Intervention. This coming semester she will be student teaching to receive her Elementary/Special Education teaching certifications. She also plans to pursue graduate level programs in order to continue her work and understanding of individuals with autism.

Old Slavery v. Modern Day Slavery Part II

Part of the Human Trafficking Students' series on HTP

By Ashley Keller
Old Slavery v. Modern Day Slavery Part II

It is commendable that human trafficking is getting more and more attention and global awareness is on the rise. But, the small amount of information regarding this marginalized group is simply not enough, especially when there are statistics that report there are approximately 340 million women with disabilities (Amon, 2010)!

Even more stunning, not only is there a severe lack of information regarding human trafficking and disabilities worldwide, but there are entire United Nations and United States government reports, among others, that include hundreds of pages of statistics and personal accounts with no mention of this group of individuals. My nickname for them has become the forgotten people. That is precisely what they are, forgotten, omitted, passed over, left out.

It is incredible that with all the disability acts, services and initiatives, in the United States and around the world, that they have been so easily forgotten! The Bureau of Justice Statistics completed a National Crime Victimization Survey in 2007. This survey included nonfatal violent and property crimes against individuals with disabilities. Individuals with disabilities were victims of approximately “47,000 rapes, 79,000 robberies, 114,000 aggravated assaults, and 476,000 simple assaults”. It was also found that disabled persons had a “1.5 times higher rate for persons without disabilities” to be involved in a nonfatal violent incident. Not surprisingly, their survey also found that “females with a disability had a higher victimization rate than males with a disability”.

On the other hand, among typical individuals, males had a higher victimization rate than females. In Joseph Amon’s article entitled Invisible Women he states that “at least 10 percent of the world’s population is believed to live with a disability…half - 340 million - are women”. Sadly the voices of these women are not heard because they do not fit neatly into one group. They are women, but they are disabled, so they are not included in any women’s movements and even though they are disabled they are not necessarily included in any disability movements because they are women.

As previously discussed, the four major vulnerabilities of trafficking are poverty, ignorance, minority and being a female. According to Stop Violence Against Women, women make up 75% of the disabled population. This means that 75% of the disabled population has at least three out of the four major red flags that increase vulnerability to human trafficking. They are disabled which makes them a minority and often creates a lack of knowledge, and on top of that they are women. Because of the incorrect belief that sex with a virgin will cure HIV/AIDS, many women and children in this category are victimized.

This is due to another false belief that because these women are disabled, they are also virgins (stopvaw, 2009). UNICEF reports, that virtually 100% of disabled females in India are beaten, 25% are raped and 6% are forcibly sterilized. In South Africa battered women services are not accessible.

Children suffer a high rate of victimization in this population as well due to the fact that “impairments often make children appear as ‘easy victims’”. This is not only because they may have difficulty in defending themselves or in reporting the abuse, but also because their accounts are often dismissed (UNICEF, 2008). Children in general, and children with disabilities in particular, are thought to have unreliable testimonies of situations that occur, including those involving exploitation and abuse.

USAID reports on some facts that they received from UNICEF, and it has been reported that in Thailand prostitution houses seek deaf girls. Their thought process behind this is that not many people know sign language so these girls will not be able to communicate effectively in order to get help. This specific disability serves to isolate these individuals even more than a typically developing individual trafficked into an unknown country.

They also report that the rate of child prostitutes with mild developmental disabilities is six times greater than what is expected within the general population. This marginalized group is underrepresented and does not have access to the tools they need to become empowered. Unfortunately, even organizations that make attempts to help fall short of being accessible to this population worldwide.

Continued Tuesday September 14th, 2010.

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Ashley received her B.A. in Psychology from Immaculata University this past semester. She has worked with individuals with autism for about 10 years and is currently working as an ABA therapist doing Early Intense Behavioral Intervention. This coming semester she will be student teaching to receive her Elementary/Special Education teaching certifications. She also plans to pursue graduate level programs in order to continue her work and understanding of individuals with autism.

The Forgotten People of Modern Day Slavery Part I

Part of the Human Trafficking Students' Series on HTP

By Ashley Keller
Old Slavery v. Modern Day Slavery Part I

Enslavement of individuals predates our history. It has been around since the beginning of man. However, it was not until sometime in the 15th century that slavery focused on a certain group of people, the African Americans (Mintz 2007). When I speak of “old slavery” I am referring to the Transatlantic Slave Trade. There are some engrained similarities to old slavery when compared to modern. For instance, there is a loss of control and free will on the victim’s part, and it continues to be exploitation for profit. The enslaved are broken down to a sort of commodity to be traded, bought and sold. Their humanness is ripped away and replaced with a monetary value. However, modern day slavery, also known as human trafficking, is not the slavery from our history books. The old slavery was hyper focused on a specific group of people, African Americans, whereas modern day slavery “cuts across nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, age, class, education-level, and other demographic features” (National, 2010; Polaris 2009).

People are easier and cheaper to buy than ever before. It is estimated that the slaves of history were ten times more expensive then modern day slaves (Polaris 2009). The ease and cheapness of modern day slaves creates an issue of “disposability” because of the inexpensiveness of the “investment” (Bales, 2004). This “disposability” poses yet another threat to the countless, nameless, voiceless individuals caught in this hell.

Due to the fact that slaves are so cheap, there is much less motivation for the traffickers to take care of their “investments” because there are plenty more when needed. There are many reasons that individuals may be trafficked. Some of the reasons are: debt bondage, sexual exploitation, forced labor/service like domestic labor, agricultural labor, sweatshops, begging, hard labor, soldiers, hospitality industries and many more. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime reports that 161 countries have been identified as being affected by human trafficking (Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns).

Human Trafficking and Disabilities

The International Labor Organization estimates that 2.4 million people were trafficked between 1995 and 2005. The 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report reports that 12.3 million adults and children were trafficked in 2009, at a rate of 1.8 people per 1,000 worldwide. In 2007, the Trafficking in Persons Report stated that 800,000 people are trafficked across borders every year, of which about 80% are women and girls and up to 50% are children. In the U.S. State Department’s “The Facts About Child Sex Tourism: 2005” it is reported that approximately 1 million children are sexually exploited every year throughout the world.

This statistic, as are most, if not all, is broken down into specifications of age and gender, but there is no specific information as to how many of these individuals have a disability. As defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act, a disability is; “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities; a record of such an impairment; or a person regarded as having such an impairment”.

Human trafficking and disabilities is a severely under addressed topic in the discussion of human slavery. There are very few reports on its incidence. In 2009, Stop Violence Against Women wrote an article called “Violence Against Women with Disabilities”. They report that children in orphanages are at a higher risk for violence. Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery – Belgium reports that gangs throughout Belgium’s major cities organize begging rings using children and individuals with disabilities, typically from Romania (Patt, 2010). Due to the lack of understanding, financial means and cultural stigmas, discussed further below, children with disabilities are a source of shame to their families.

Research indicates that violence against children with disabilities occurs at least 1.7 times greater annually than for their peers without disabilities (disabledworld). There are many reasons as to why these families give up their children, such as not having the knowledge or financial resources to care for these children. Other reasons are extensions of cultural beliefs. UNICEF reports, “[s]ocial beliefs about disability include the fear that disability is associated with evil, witchcraft or infidelity, which serve to entrench the marginalisation of disabled people” (2008) . As a result, these children wind up in orphanages where they are much more susceptible to violence. Women and girls with disabilities are especially vulnerable to physical and sexual violence which puts them in danger of unplanned pregnancies due to sexual exploitation.

A child who requires assistance with washing, dressing and other intimate care activities may be particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse. Perpetrators can include caretakers, attendants, family members, peers or anyone who enjoys a position of trust and power (UNICEF, 2007).

People with disabilities are not seen as individuals who deserve dignity and respect. Even if a pregnancy occurs within a normal situation, not having to do with sexual exploitation, disabled women often do not have a choice in whether they can keep their children and abortions are forced upon them. Disabled women are also forcibly sterilized so that the issue of pregnancy will not become a recurring issue (UNICEF, 2007).

Not only are disabled children dumped off into the system and stripped of their inalienable human rights, but as they grow up they are blacklisted from employment. The factors that are thought to cause the most vulnerability for an individual to be trafficked are being impoverished, lack of knowledge or ignorance, others also discuss that being a female and a minority exacerbate the issues (UNIAP, 2007). However, the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking and the Strategic Information Response Network (SIREN) warn against over generalizing the vulnerabilities being dealt with by different cultures and areas. They suggest that it is naïve to enter an area assuming that the issue is the same as others. They argue that it is important to know the people, the culture and the problems before implementing a program in order to provide assistance.

Many groups go to help, but assume generalizations as fact and set up information programs and funding programs to fix the ignorant and impoverished in order to combat those specific vulnerabilities. However, those may not actually be the issue (UNIAP, 2007). In Cornell University’s 2007 Disability Status Report, they show that the employment gap between individuals with and without disabilities is 42.8%, in the United States alone (Baker, 2008). This enormous gap in employment exacerbates the vulnerability of poverty that these individuals experience by denying them access to a self-sustaining life with gainful employment.

Continued Monday, September 13th, 2010.

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Ashley received her B.A. in Psychology from Immaculata University this past semester. She has worked with individuals with autism for about 10 years and is currently working as an ABA therapist doing Early Intense Behavioral Intervention. This coming semester she will be student teaching to receive her Elementary/Special Education teaching certifications. She also plans to pursue graduate level programs in order to continue her work and understanding of individuals with autism.

Setting the Record Straight

Last week, the Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales, and Northern Island issued a report that found that nearly 10% of prostitutes in the UK are victims of human trafficking (that figure jumps to 15% for migrant women.

Release about the report:

The report, called Setting the Record, involved a widespread collaboration between a number of law enforcement agencies, non-government organisations and has been independently academically reviewed. It also has the support of government as providing the most comprehensive estimate of the levels of trafficking for sexual exploitation.

It found that around 17,000 of the estimated 30,000 women involved in off-street prostitution in England and Wales are migrants. Approximately half come from Eastern Europe and a third from Asia. These women were grouped into three categories: those who were trafficked, those who are vulnerable and those who meet neither threshold.

Of the 17,000 migrant women identified, 2,600 were deemed to have been trafficked and a further 9,200 were deemed vulnerable migrants who may be further victims of trafficking. Most of those trafficked (2,200) are from Asia, primarily China.

ACPO lead on migration and associated matters Deputy Chief Constable Chris Eyre said: “Human trafficking for sexual exploitation involves the most extreme abuse of individuals in our communities.

“We recognise that Project Acumen focuses on only one area of trafficking, but it clearly sets out the scale of the problems that those in law enforcement, victim support, social care and border protection, collectively face.

“It provides us with a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of how migrant women are involved in prostitution - how they are influenced, controlled, coerced, exploited and trafficked. “The publication of this report represents not the end of a process, but the start. We now have a better picture of the extent of trafficking and will look to support from Government to ensure we work effectively with all agencies to make the UK a more hostile environment for traffickers, to shut down trafficking routes into the UK and to prosecute those who are exploiting women for their own gains.”

Read the full report here.

Symposium on Human Trafficking in Los Angeles

From the UCLA Center for the Study of Women:

The University of California Institute for Research in the Arts and the UCLA Center for the Study of Women present

A Symposium on Human Trafficking in Los Angeles: Local Discussions and New Collaborative Directions in Anti-Trafficking Work and Research

UCLA Royce Hall, Room 314 – May 14, 2010 – 9am-4pm

Keynote Speaker Denise Brennan, Georgetown University

Confirmed Participants: Kathleen Kim (Loyola Law School) – Jennifer Musto (UCLA) – Lara Stemple (UCLA) – Elena Shih (UCLA) – Dennis Ballas (LAPD) – Maria Suarez (Human Trafficking Survivor and Advocate) – Imelda Buncab (Not For Sale) – Susie Baldwin (LA County Department of Public Health) – Vanessa Lanza (Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking) – Abbe Land (City of West Hollywood).

The Human Trafficking in Los Angeles Symposium brings together scholars, students, professional advocates, activists, and artists in Southern California to discuss regional trends, collaborative interventions, and artistic responses to human trafficking for the purposes of forced labor. Organized around structured conversations and panel discussions, this event provides a platform to reflect upon the multi-professional, cross-institutional relationships that have been forged to respond to human trafficking in Los Angeles and questions recent trends in identifying and protecting trafficked persons and researching the issue.

RSVP to Jennifer Musto at jmusto@ucla.edu by May 12th.

This event is being funded through support from University of California Institute for Research in the Arts and is cosponsored by the UCLA Center for the Study of Womenm the UCLA Department of Women's Studies, and the UCLA Anti-Trafficking and Human Rights Coalition Student Group, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts, the LA Metro Task Force on Human Trafficking, and the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking.