US Efforts to Influence Government Policies on Human Trafficking

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

This award satisfies Division B, Title V, Sec. 543 of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 (P.L. 113-6, enacted on March 26, 2013). This project examines the efforts of the US government to influence countries around the world to fight human trafficking. The project's intellectual impact is to improve our understanding of diplomacy and of how the international community can encourage governments to undertake domestic reforms through different strategies such as persuasion, shaming and economic pressure. The project thus contributes to core questions about power and mechanisms of influence. The US has a strong program against trafficking in persons: every year since 2001 the US State Department has reported publically on the efforts of countries around the world to combat human trafficking. The reports themselves are similar to other State Department reports on freedom of religion or human rights, but they differ in one important respect: the issuance of a grade for each country. The State Department uses the reports and the grades to shame and praise countries and issue recommendations, and, backed by national legislation, to threaten recalcitrant states with sanctions. In each country, US embassy staff engage with officials, non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations, and encourage countries to create national anti-trafficking action plans, pass laws, or build shelters. The US also requires national authorities to provide data about their efforts, and criticizes them if they do not. After ten years, opinions of the program are mixed. This project examines the global reactions to the TIP program and its contribution to promoting some of its recommended anti-trafficking policies in countries around the world. Has the US been able to advance its preferred policies and if so, which states have been most or least responsive, what strategies have worked and which have backfired? The project will rely on multiple sources and methods. The author has gathered over 9000 documents related to diplomacy, news and organizational reports and has also built a database of about 500 relevant NGOs around the world. The research will combine quantitative analysis with content analysis of documents, extensive interviews, and case studies to trace the developments on the ground. The project will proceed at three levels. Level one seeks to explain variation in how countries react to receiving bad grades. Level two focuses on a sub-component of US efforts to push for domestic anti-trafficking laws, and will use both a global quantitative study and a detailed analysis of 26 countries for which the documentary record on the issue is particularly rich. Level three goes deeper using only 7-8 countries to analyze the effect of the entirety of US efforts in the context of other local and international actors. The broader impacts will be twofold. First is the practical policy impact: Trafficking is a human rights tragedy that destroys the lives of more than 2.4 million men, women and children every year. Because data on trafficking are still unreliable, this project cannot assess whether the current policy solutions reduce trafficking volume, but it can assess whether diplomatic efforts are succeeding in getting countries to bolster their anti-trafficking efforts and offer prescriptions for improvements. This can be relevant far beyond the specific focus of this project to other efforts to promote policies such as democracy, human rights and various political reforms. The second impact is on education: The project will involve students in teaching and research opportunities, and disseminate project findings widely through conferences, lectures, publications and, with the PI in a school of public policy, also concerted policy engagement.