Why are we focused on research?  

Billions of dollars have been spent globally to combat human trafficking but many trafficking survivors still do not have even basic resources once they have been freed from enslavement. In order to provide those resources, we need to stop and ask those on the front-lines about what is and isn’t working and identify any gaps in services. We do this by introducing the first-ever National Outreach Survey (NOS), where every adult can participate…including concerned citizens such as yourself. 

Some of the unresolved challenges include lack of funds, outdated statistics, lack of best practices and standards, and division among leaders. As we consider those lingering challenges, most of us would agree that they may be slowing down progress in the fight against all forms of human trafficking. Challenges vary among different stakeholder groups and vary greatly in different countries. The NOS will allow stakeholders in all participating countries to see a different perspective of those challenges impacting other groups. As humans, we tend to judge each other through the lens of our own life journeys. It's time for us to see through the lens of other stakeholders so that we can unify by addressing these challenges together. The results of the NOS will also provide much-needed data to allow each of us to choose to implement positive change in a movement that has become highly divisive, leaving negative impacts on those we are here to serve, sex and labor trafficking survivors.

What will we accomplish? 

• Host the international National Outreach Survey for thousands of participants and provide hundreds of new data points from more than 20 anti-trafficking stakeholder groups. Over 800 survey questions will be included on the large-scale NOS, with each stakeholder group being asked a smaller number of questions. The NOS will utilize skip logic to ensure that respondents are only asked questions relevant to their group.

• The NOS will be hosted on the Qualtrics survey platform that allows up to 75 language translations for the survey instrument to be available to international stakeholders.

• Create an Appropriations Committee to help determine the true cost to combat trafficking on the front-lines in the United States.

• Release 50 Governor State Reports on Human Trafficking (GSR), in addition to a National Governor State Report on Human Trafficking, a Global Report on Human Trafficking, and an Appropriations Report. Each state will receive a custom GSR report with the data collected from participating stakeholders in their state. 

• Launch a web-based open-source data base to share our data with the public-at-large and allow researchers to further disseminate the NOS data.

• Provide our data reports to Congress to seek new legislation and provide more resources to every state.

• Provide our data reports to a global entity that will use our research to hopefully raise hundreds of millions of dollars for safe houses and shelters around the globe.

• Repeat the National Outreach Survey every two years to measure benchmarks and ongoing challenges and successes experienced by international anti-trafficking stakeholders.