Oregon State University’s 2012 Interdisciplinary Conference on Sex Trafficking in the United States: Researching Vulnerable Populations, February 16-18, 2012, at LaSells Stewart Center, OSU campus, Corvallis, Oregon.
Theme:
The conference theme, “Vulnerable Populations,” focuses our attention those who are at most risk for sex trafficking. We are especially interested in research that examines risks, experiences, consequences, and interventions of sex trafficking across differences of race/ethnicity, nation of origin, socioeconomic class, sexual and gender identities, ability, and age.
In particular, we encourage submissions that examine issues of trafficking of ethnic minority women in the United States and trafficking of rural women and/or in rural areas. We are also interested in proposals that examine methodological and ethical issues of research on trafficking.
Edited Volume:
The conference will result in an edited volume of selected papers on the topic. The text will be an expansion on the existing scholarship on sex trafficking because it seeks to focus on underrepresented populations and on domestic sex trafficking in the US. More information will be forthcoming on this publication.
Background:
Sex trafficking within the U.S. is legally defined as commercial sex acts induced by force, fraud, or coercion or commercial sex acts in which the individual induced to perform commercial sex has not attained 18 years of age. In May 2010 Portland, Oregon was named “pornland” by Dan Rather in a television report that brought national attention to sex trafficking in the Pacific NW. It was precipitated by two FBI Innocence Lost project stings in cities across the US in 2008 and 2009 that identified both Portland and Seattle as hubs for sex trafficking. In January 2009, the NW Coalition Against Trafficking (NWCAT) held its first conference to raise awareness in Portland and has done so annually each year since. As academics working in the Pacific NW, we began to ask ourselves, what we could do to help NWCAT in its work and what role research plays in preventing sex trafficking in our state and region. Our path towards making a connection between theory and practice became clear after the 2010 NWCAT conference was derided by some local politicians and national scholars for hyping the numbers of potential and actual victims of sex trafficking in Oregon and about domestic sex trafficking in the US in general.
Federal immigration and criminal justice, in addition to local, state, and other federal law enforcement agencies, along with national victim-based advocacy groups, have participated in joint task forces that share their respective expertise and resources to research domestic sex trafficking and distribute their research findings. In addition, the Human Smuggling Trafficking Center (HSTC) formed in 2004 serves as a hub for sex trafficking information and brings together analysts, investigators, officers, and experts from various agencies, including US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), FBI, CIA, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security to study the incidence and circumstances surrounding sex trafficking. Also, with Bureau of Justice Assistance funding, many states, including Oregon, have developed human trafficking task forces to combat the problem at the local level. Activist, academic, and governmental organizations produce data on sex trafficking but the results have been weak. Many of the findings have been called into account for failing to have conducted the research according to accepted methods. It has been argued that both the criminal justice professionals and victim advocates have political stakes in the numbers that can make their data more guess work than reliable statistics. Even the US General Accounting Office states, "The U.S. government estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 persons are trafficked across international borders annually. However, such estimates of global human trafficking are questionable. The accuracy of the estimates is in doubt because of methodological weaknesses, gaps in data, and numerical discrepancies. For example, the U.S. government's estimate was developed by one person who did not document all his work, so the estimate may not be replicable, casting doubt on its reliability. Moreover, country data are not available, reliable, or comparable. There is also a considerable discrepancy between the numbers of observed and estimated victims of human trafficking. The U.S. government has not yet established an effective mechanism for estimating the number of victims or for conducting ongoing analysis of trafficking related data that resides within government entities."
Human Trafficking: Better Data, Strategy, and Reporting Needed to Enhance U.S. Anti-trafficking Efforts Abroad GAO-06-825 July 18, 2006. http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-825
Scholars argue the difficulty in producing accurate data on a reportedly illegal and covert phenomenon happening in the shadow economy. Sex trafficking has been found in a wide variety of venues of the overall sex industry, including residential brothels, hostess clubs, online escort services, brothels disguised as massage parlors, strip clubs, and street prostitution. In most of these businesses the owners, employees, and customers all seek anonymity for a variety of reasons, some of which involve criminal behavior in general and sex trafficking specifically.
Who should attend?
This conference seeks to bring together experts for a cross-disciplinary discussion about the research challenges involved in studying vulnerable populations enmeshed in sex trafficking in the United States. It is formatted for those who have research results or ideas, who wish to inform their peers of the work of their non-governmental or governmental organization, or who wish to fund anti-trafficking efforts and research.
We seek to include:
• Scholars and graduate students (with complete or near complete projects) with an interest in providing knowledge and methodologies to study the problems surrounding sex trafficking in the United States. Scholars and graduate students from all academic disciplines, including but not limited to: psychology, criminal justice, law, political science, women’s and gender studies, public policy, public health, anthropology, ethnic studies, Native American studies, rural studies, urban studies and others are invited to submit their work.
• Undergraduate and graduate students seeking feedback, please note a special student session has been created for those who wish advice on honors thesis, MA thesis, or PhD dissertation on sex trafficking.
• Relevant governmental agencies and NGOs are also invited to apply. Practitioners from law enforcement, social service agencies, and others who see the effects of trafficking in their work, and can report their findings about the efficacy of methods to combat and prevent sex trafficking.
• Foundations and others who will fund knowledge-creation, programs and program evaluation, and methodology-creation and who wish to speak about their work and their priorities
Inquiries:
The aim of the conference is to facilitate the exchange of expert knowledge about the social, political, economic, and cultural aspects of sex trafficking and vulnerable communities to better understand its complex patterns and begin a comprehensive discussion of causes, consequences, and possible solutions that research can provide. Our goal is to explore the following questions from an interdisciplinary perspective:
• What is a vulnerable population in sex trafficking (e.g. age, gender, nationality, ethnicity, etc.)?
• How does migration further complicate sex trafficking research?
• How are research methods stratified within the academy and how does this impact which sex trafficking data is deemed “good” and which is considered “bad.”
• How do attitudes and beliefs about prostitution on the local, state, and national level impact “counting” in shadow economies with vulnerable populations?
• How can academic research provide a basis for evidence-based policy making that leads to prevention and rehabilitation?
Prospective Submission Themes:
Themes for conference (edited volume) submissions might include following:
• Getting access—what does ethnicity have to do with sex trafficking research into vulnerable populations with in the Native, Latina/o, African, and Asian American communities?
• If traditional punishment of child/teen prostitutes has yielded poor results, can new approaches that reframe the prostitute as a victim of sex trafficking prove more successful?
• Does trauma like physical assault, robbery, rape, gang rape, torture, HIV/STD infection, death threats, sexual violence, and physical bondage impact decision-making of sex trafficking victims?
• Can victims of sex trafficking develop similar patterns as domestic violence victims (battered wife syndrome) or hostage victims (Stockholm syndrome) or war veterans/prisoners (PTSD)?
• Special vulnerable populations—throw-away, run-away, and homeless boys/teen males and sex trafficking– which research methods work and why?
• The pimp, the gang, the criminal enterprise— how to safely research dangerous populations in the shadow economy.
• Attitudes and belief of criminal justice and human services professionals –do they impact research results in ways that favor accuracy—or obfuscate certainty?
• Rural to urban, state to state, reservation to reservation—how does movement, location, and migration impact research on sex trafficking?
• Working with sex trafficking victims—how can researchers minimize the psychological and emotional harm of data gathering and help avoid mental, emotional, and physical health disorders?
• Supply and demand—who should researchers be targeting for their investigations? Why are there so many consumers, especially men, with sexual neurosis who want to have sex with children and teens? How do we study them?
• Policy, law, and regulation—best methods for analysis that can further understanding of sex trafficking and its prevention?
• Popular culture and pornography—can research into the impact of commercialized sex help explicate the rise in “desire” for underage sex partners?
• Can partnerships be formed with medical professionals, similar to domestic violence identification, to gather stronger data on sex trafficking—screening youths for physical signs of abuse such as cigarette burns, bruises, blunt trauma, multiple bone fractures in different phases of healing, brands on the skin, scars that may indicate “ownership,” needle marks along veins, and malnourishment?
• Foundations and corporations—how can these important funders become more educated consumers of research proposals on sex trafficking?
Instructions for submitting a proposal:
Submit an abstract of up to 300 words (no more) to conference web site or email by November 30, 2011. Acceptance notifications will be made by December 15, 2011. Below are the possible formats, please select the one that best fits your work. Please note that we have allocated 50 minutes total for each presentation type. Please note that in cases where audience participation is part of the arrangement this means 40 minutes to present with 10 remaining for Q & A from the participants.
•Paper Presentations: Paper proposals are submitted individually and arranged into sessions by the Conference Committee. In paper sessions, two scholars are partnered each making a 20 minute presentation. Time: 40 minutes with 10 minutes of Q and A.
• Panels: Panels consist of 3 people (including the chair). A panel presents its views on a common theme, issue, or question. The panel will also discuss the presentation with the audience and approach pertinent topics from a variety of viewpoints. The chair of the panel must provide an abstract that includes the following: (1) introduction of the panel topic that includes its importance, originality, focus, and timeliness (2) expertise of the proposed panelists, panelists’ perspective titles, the organization he/she represents, and order of presentation and (3) the potential for informative and controversial discussion. Time: 40 minutes with 10 minutes of Q and A.
• Demonstration Projects: This format would be most appropriate for practitioners who see the effects of trafficking in their work, and can report their findings about the efficacy of methods to combat and prevent sex trafficking. Presentations that show a specific practice related to aspects of the conference theme are encouraged. After a brief description of the underlying theory, the demonstration session should show ways the theory is used in practice. Presenters are encouraged to use materials that actively involve participants. Time: 50 minutes.
• Poster Sessions: This format is an effective forum for the exchange of information and a means to communicate ideas, research, and programs. Poster sessions may present any of the following: a description of an innovative program, an analysis of a practical problem-solving effort, a report of a research study. Poster session participants place materials such as pictures, data, graphs, diagrams, and narrative text on 4' x 8' boards. Participants informally discuss their presentations with conference attendees. Time: 50 min.
• Student Feedback Session: There will be a special session for students who wish to receive feedback on papers, theses, and dissertations that are proposed or in progress. Time: 50 min.
Conference Committee:
-Joslyn Baker, collaboration specialist for the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice
-Norma L. Cardenas, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies
-Allison Davis-White Eyes, Director of the Office of American Indian Initiatives
-Erin Dubyak, graduate instructor in Women Studies
-Karen Mills, administrative assistant for the School of Language, Culture, and Society
-Susana Rivera-Mills, Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts,
-Sarina Rodrigues Saturn, Assistant Professor of Psychology
-Tonia St. Germain, J.D., Associate Professor, Gender Studies, Eastern Oregon University
-Susan M. Shaw, Professor of Women Studies and Transitional Director of the School of Language, Culture, and Society
-Rita Snyder, graduate instructor in Women Studies
For more information:
Web site: http://oregonstate.edu/conferences/event/sextrafficking2012/
email: osusextraffickingconference@gmail.com
Sponsored by Women Studies, the School of Language, Culture, and Society, the CLA Dean’s Office, and the OSU Research Office
Susan M. Shaw, Ph.D.
Professor of Women Studies
Transitional Director of the School of Language, Culture, and Society
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331
541-737-3082
