Victim-Centered Approach for Detection of Human Trafficking Victims
Figure 7 . Percent of human trafficking victims that were willing to cooperate but were not identified under the victim-centered approach .
the victim-centered approach became effective , given spatial and network influences . The model , as in the real-world , is sensitive to the initial cooperation of the victim population . Our results imply that modest success in the model requires a very high level of initial cooperation , nearly half of the population . This , in turn , suggests victim experiences and perceptions before interaction with authorities are very important because those experiences and perceptions lead to persistent clusters of migrants willing to cooperate even after border closure . Results also suggest state authorities need early successes for cooperative strategies to propagate across the population . Initial findings also suggest a victim-centered approach coupled with more selective immigration policies appear to yield the most success in detecting human trafficking victims . In this model , the economic immigration policy was the more selective of the two . More research is required to determine if more selective policies are indeed more conducive to the victim-centered approach .
The results are not an indictment on humanitarian policies or a promotion of economic policies , per se , but rather it may be an indication that overarching goals of a state ’ s immigration policy — and a state ’ s subsequent allocation of resources and efforts — have a direct ( and counterintuitive ) impact on whether a victim-centered approach is successful . In other words , we suggest that less selective policies allow the migrant quota to be filled so quickly that trust and cooperation levels necessary for the victim-centered approach to be successful do not have time to propagate and influence victim beliefs . This tradeoff between policy goals and resources is exacerbated by mass migration flows , and emphasizes even more so , the critical role of initial cooperation levels and perceptions of the state among target populations .
Future Research
This agent-based model is an exploratory model that requires more development and validation to empirical data sets . To be
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