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Research Notes

At The Irina Project, we’ve seen the ways that research about sex trafficking can extend the range of approaches journalists take to understanding the issue and help with tracking down additional data and knowledgeable sources.

If you’ve published research on sex trafficking, we invite you to send us an abstract or a paragraph about your study. Please provide contact information (we hope you are willing to be contacted by journalists) as well as a link to the publication. And because we believe that research can inform reporting on sex trafficking, we would love to know if there’s information in your study that suggests a story idea/approach or illuminates a related issue in need of journalistic scrutiny.

If you’re a journalist, please think of these research studies as sources of information for your coverage of sex trafficking, and the study authors as expert sources. And if you have ideas about research on sex trafficking, or are looking for specific kinds of information or experts, feel free to contact us.

What Counts as Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation? How Legal Methods Can Improve Empirical Research

2/27/2017

 
By Michelle Madden Dempsey
Journal of Human Trafficking, Published online 27 February 2017

Abstract
: This article, a contribution to a special issue of the Journal of Human Trafficking examining “data wars” amongst empirical researchers who purport to study the prevalence of human trafficking, explores how closer attention to legal methods may improve the validity and reliability of research regarding the prevalence of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. The author hopes to illuminate and motivate two conclusions. First, some researchers have failed to accurately analyze the legal definitions of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and instead have used inaccurately narrow definitions in their research. By so doing, they have undercounted the prevalence of trafficking and have produced scholarship that is of limited relevance to legal and policy debates regarding the regulation of prostitution. Second, some researchers have provided inadequate application of the facts in particular cases to the legal definitions of trafficking for sexual exploitation. As a result, their scholarship suffers from a lack of clarity regarding why they fail to count some cases as trafficking—and this lack of clarity contributes to a lack of reliability, since the reader is unable to discern their method for determining which cases count as trafficking and which do not. As a result of these problems, the empirical research critiqued in this article is of limited value in guiding law and policy debates regarding the regulation of prostitution.

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TIP is based at the University of North Carolina Hussman School of Journalism and Media, in Chapel Hill, NC. It is directed by Dr. Barbara Friedman, who co-founded it in 2009 with Dr. Anne Johnston, professor emerita. They gratefully acknowledge the support and encouragement of the Carolina Center for Public Service and Thorp Faculty Engaged Scholars, the UNC-CH School of Social Work, and the Carolina Women’s Center.

The Irina Project
Hussman School of Journalism and Media
UNC-Chapel Hill
CB #3365
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
  • The Irina Project
    • What We Do
    • About Our Team
  • Resources
    • Tip-sheets >
      • Using Images When Reporting on Human Trafficking
      • Reporting Sex Trafficking: Overcoming Obstacles, Gaining Perspective
      • Tips for Interviewing Survivors
      • Tips for Reporting on Latinx Community and Sex Trafficking
      • U Visas: A Source for Reporting on Human Trafficking
      • How to Use Sex Trafficking Research: 10 Tips for Journalists
    • Language Matters
    • definitions
  • Perspectives
    • Blogs and News
    • Experts' Quick Takes
    • Interviews
  • Contact Us