Potential Allies and Understanding the Problem

     In developing this social venture to combat human trafficking it is critical to find effective data to construct a narrative and inform decisions. It is equally important to understand human trafficking is a critical humanitarian issue that many people and organizations are interested in reducing. Originally, my plan was to focus on a law enforcement resource solution to the problem. I felt legalization of voluntary sex work would allow police and federal law enforcement to focus on persons in the industry against their will. While this is still part of the model, the venture has become more dynamic in subsequent iterations, and now must include advocacy for immigration reform. If migrant works are given an easy, legal way to enter and work in the United States on a temporary basis, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be able to focus on people being trafficked against their will or for illegal purposes.

     On our instructor’s advice, I looked into Marinus Analytics to get an understanding of the work that has been done on sex trafficking and data analysis. The group was founded by CMU Robotics Institution alums right in our own back yard.  Marinus Analytics scans websites to identify veiled advertisements for sex that often involves trafficked people, this analysis allows police to focus their operations.  With this understanding, I decided I needed to hunt down some statistics myself. Looking at websites like dosomething.org and ilo.org I was able to learn some important facts about the worldwide human trafficking industry including: 21 million people are trafficked worldwide, women and girls are being disproportionately forced into sex work, migrant workers are especially vulnerable to slavery, and labor from trafficking is worth about $150 billion. The value of the industry was most surprising to me, and suggests it could be very difficult to combat such a huge source of money.