I’ve heard many of you ask me questions such as, “What are the real numbers of trafficked people? Is the problem growing? Are we making any difference? Why do some papers report 27 million, 35 million, or 21 million people in slavery today?” Furthermore, you’ll hear statistics that sex trafficking accounts for most of the human trafficking, while another group claims that labor trafficking leads in numbers of people. There also exists the discrepancy between number of males and females trafficked.
There are several valid reasons why these discrepancies exist. It is quite difficult to enumerate the population of slaves in the world, and part of this is due to the various definitions of what constitutes human trafficking/slavery around the world and the various methodologies used in the counting. Some of these methodologies are flawed due to the bias of the reporter or researcher.
It is not within the scope of this post is not about to try to sort all that out, but to illuminate one of the major problems of trying to fight slavery today.
I am not a statistician, but I am a professional trained to think critically about data and how to apply it. I am also a leader, an advocate, and truth-teller. What has bothered me regarding the reporting of statistics in the human trafficking world is the lack of due diligence to check the credibility of the reported data. Numbers keep getting repeated and repeated and many do not even know the original source and it is not cited. Even worse, some statistics are misrepresented and improperly used. Sometimes this usage is mere oversight – I hope it is not due to intentional manipulation to bolster an agenda.
I recently read an enlightening article that articulates this problem quite clearly. It discusses issues related to public awareness and use of statistics by academics, authors, and activists, which then are repeated and published by many others. Unfortunately, the statistical conclusions reached by the few are based on flawed methodology which then decreases the reliability of the results and conclusions. The problem is that flawed data continues to be reported and repeated and the interpretations misrepresented.
I’ll highlight a couple of the author’s implications of this problem (Fedina 2014):
- Perpetual use and misuse of unsubstantiated research threatens the credibility of current anti-trafficking efforts and the funding needed to aid victims in recovery.
- With growing emphases on evidence-based and research-informed practice in human services, the use of flawed data gives providers and inaccurate picture of human trafficking that may impact their approaches to address human trafficking and sere victims.
An example of this is found in this article by The Guardian, which calls out the methodological problems in the 2014 Global Slavery Index produced by the organization Walk Free. This is not to say that all the information is incorrect or cannot be used at all, but it does raise some points to consider. Although this report is singled out by the newspaper, it is not the only example of using numbers to say more than they are able.
The problems that arise The Guardian include the same reasons that Ms. Fedina outlines:
“The most immediate problem is that poor information, presented as fact, contributes to poor decision making and sometimes highly damaging, unintended outcomes.”
“Another grave concern is the distorting effect that organisations such as Walk Free and tools like the index are having on how we understand and respond to human exploitation. Put simply, by failing to challenge or even gently interrogate the underlying structures that perpetuate and reward exploitation, the index embodies and perpetuates a comforting belief that slavery is all about bad individuals doing bad things to good people.”
The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2006 produced a report that highlights the lack of credibility of statistics used by the US government. “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.”
The Guardian article leads to another point that I’d like to highlight in another post at some point: “Philanthropic Colonialism” Here is a glimpse: “At the root of this belief is an unshakable faith in us being able to eliminate slavery without fundamentally changing how our societies and economies are organised; without a radical shift in the distribution and exercise of political and economic power, including a global economy that depends on the exploitation of poor people’s labour to maintain growth and a global migration system that entrenches vulnerability.”
I sincerely hope that you will do your due diligence by reading these articles to become aware of the pitfalls I’ve outlined here. These authors speak to this problem more succinctly than I could myself, although I do see these issues first hand.
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