human trafficking — Blog — Sage Perspectives Blog

Human Trafficking could happen anywhere. Here's how we can be equipped to respond.

Headlines inflaming fears about human trafficking of children dominate news outlets and community social media discussions. Parents are terrified of scary strangers lurking in grocery store parking lots. They feel compassion for victims they perceive as threatened by traffickers prowling United States borders. The uncomfortable truth lies much closer to home. In reality, parents should be more afraid of the thousands of strangers regularly invited into the bedroom of unsuspecting children each night through social media in a world where trafficking is moving from the street to the smartphone.

Human Trafficking: Recent Empirical Research

Since our special issue on human trafficking in The ANNALS (Volume 653 in 2014), we are happy to report that there has been significant growth in both the quantity and quality of research on human trafficking. Here are our findings.

The Public Health Response to Human Trafficking: A Look Back and a Step Forward

To counter and eventually eliminate human trafficking (HT) requires not only a strong response from the criminal justice system, but also a comprehensive, rigorous public health response. We’ve come a long way in the past 20 years, but there’s still much to be done - here are recommendations for future research.