Exploitation is not sustainable

Symposium shows how data can help end human trafficking

Despite somber statistics about human trafficking locally and around the world, there is hope that good, reliable data can lead to solutions on the individual and societal levels, attendees were told at the Freedom Lifemap Symposium “Exploitation is Not Sustainable” Oct. 29 at the Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering.

The UC Irvine Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation and the Orange County nonprofit EverFree brought together community changemakers, funders and partners working together to fight against trafficking and exploitation.

Luncheon attendees were shown how solid data fed into cutting-edge and validated Freedom Lifemap technology, which EverFree and the Blum Center developed with an investment from the philanthropic Samueli Fund, is helping to better understand and address exploitation and trafficking around the world.

During his welcoming remarks, Dean Jon Gould said, “You may be wondering what is the School of Social Ecology doing interacting with EverFree on an issue like human trafficking. For those of you who are friends of the school, the answer comes immediately because you know that in our School of Social Ecology, we don’t just study social problems, we also try to work in partnership to try to solve them. And in doing that, we are always looking for partners in the community, whether it’s here in Orange County, across the state, the nation, the world. The kinds of organizations that are committed to bringing positive change to the community and to using research to be able to move the needle forward. In that respect, we are delighted to work with EverFree.”

EverFree CEO Kelsey Morgan (’24 Ph.D. social ecology) co-founded Freedom Lifemap with Blum Center postdoctoral researcher Angela Robinson ('20 Ph.D. psychological science).

“We have such a powerful room of changemakers gathered here today, from folks who are working with survivors of exploitation, and the most vulnerable in our communities, day in and day out, to the folks who raise funds to fuel those efforts, to those who are pursuing justice and implementing policies at the local and state level,” Morgan told the crowd. “This is a room of people who can really get things done, and we have an agenda that is going to allow us to do exactly that.”

First, one must know the scope of the societal problem being dealt with, which urban planning & public policy Professor Richard Matthew, the faculty director of the Blum Center, shared at the gathering.

“Lots of you have a sense of human trafficking,” he said. “I want to just give a little context to what we are doing. It’s illegal—everywhere—and it has been illegal for more than 40 years everywhere on the planet. Much longer on most of the planet. And yet, it has never been easier to buy and sell people than it is today. The number of people who are slaves today has increased 25 percent in the last decade. There’s at least 50 million people in that condition, more than a million in the United States. And if we take that proportionately, that would mean there are about 10,000 in Orange County. That’s a lot of people.”

As the numbers are going up, prosecutions are going down, he added, so much so that human trafficking is the crime with the lowest prosecution rate, substantially lower than it is for homicides. Meanwhile, as those who capitalize off exploitation reap $150 billion annually across the globe, the cost to society in the U.S. alone is $400 billion, Matthew said. “That’s how much it’s going to cost in law enforcement, medical services, victim support and all those things,” he noted.

Thus, you can see why exploitation is not sustainable. But through data science, there can be a solution, attendees were informed. With good quality data, you help find resolutions at the individual and broader society levels. Matthew identified the Freedom Lifemap as a useful tool for collecting and aggregating data for the benefit of one and all. It could not come online at a better time, according to Morgan.

“There’s a lot of data on how big problems are,” she said. “We don’t have a lot of data to solve these problems. And I think that leads us to feeling overwhelmed and it leads donors to feeling overwhelmed. It leads society to feeling overwhelmed. We need to be moving the social sector toward data that can actually solve problems, and not just the scope and size of that. With our innovation in technology, we have more opportunities than ever before.”

She noted that corporations for decades have used data to employ strategies aimed at making profits rise, while over the same span the social sector has experienced very little growth. Calling on these organizations to use data for their own advantages, Morgan then turned the podium over to her fellow Anteater Robinson.

The scholar showed the audience how the tool “puts the survivor in the driver seat for their own care.” Through EverFree’s online platform, a facilitator works with the survivor to self-assess 50 indicators of wellbeing and then uses that data to mark achievements and set priorities. The data from all individuals who use the tool can then be collected and analyzed for a macro view of areas for concern and effectiveness.

Attendees left their dining tables for breakout sessions, where they engaged in discussions on how data from Freedom Lifemap can help target resources and shape strategies for vulnerable communities to end exploitation. But not before Morgan remarked, “What we’re working toward with Freedom Lifemap is a really big vision. We are hoping to scale a more effective and more efficient solutions to stop exploitation and ensure freedom for all.”

— Matt Coker