by Jordan Wingate
This article originally appeared in the School of Social Work 2023 Fall Impact Report.
Core Team: Dean Duncan (PI), C. Joy Stewart, Jennie Vaughn, Wanda Reives, Nancy Hagan, Ann Johnston (School of Media and Journalism), Barbara Friedman (School of Media and Journalism), Margaret Henderson (School of Government), Kiricka Smith (N.C. Council on Women), Erin Conner (N.C. Division of Social Services), Robin Colbert (N.C. Coalition Against Sexual Assault)
The research and awareness-building efforts of a team of social work researchers is putting a spotlight on human trafficking of North Carolina’s youth — particularly youth with a connection to the child welfare system — and sparking initiatives statewide to combat it.
While human trafficking can take many forms, it is commonly defined as making someone engage in commercial sex or labor via fraud, force, or coercion. Any commercial sex involving minors constitutes trafficking, whether fraud, force, or coercion are involved or not.
Supported by a five-year, $1.2 million grant from the Children’s Bureau, Project NO REST (North Carolina Responding to the Exploitation and Sexual Trafficking of Children) is a collaborative multi-year project involving trafficking agencies, county departments of social services, religious organizations, law enforcement, and survivors to prevent human trafficking of North Carolinians under 25 years old and to connect survivors to needed support.
“Child maltreatment and trafficking share many risk factors, including family violence, parental substance abuse, and a lack of financial resources,” said Dean Duncan, project principal investigator and research professor.
After recruiting a diverse advisory group of 70 stakeholders from across the state, the project team developed and carried out overlapping plans focused on prevention, outreach to survivors, short-term services, long-term services, funding, and data needs.
Their work gained further momentum with a $5 million grant from the N.C. Governor’s Crime Commission to improve outcomes for survivors of trafficking in the state.
The NO REST team allotted half of these funds to a statewide campaign to link trafficking survivors with services, launched in partnership with WRAL, the NBC news affiliate for the Research Triangle area. Two PSAs designed to connect survivors to trafficking services were broadcast nearly 20,000 times on television and radio statewide.
The other half of the grant created local trafficking support infrastructure in five pilot sites across 17 counties in the state, which served 532 individuals in their first 2 years. The project’s evaluation found these local efforts were highly effective at increasing public awareness, expanding outreach to survivors and developing policies and practices to prevent trafficking.
Such efforts remain urgently needed in North Carolina, where interstate highways, tourist destinations, and a growing population amplify and facilitate trafficking. Indeed, the state consistently ranks among the top 15 states in the number of reports to the national trafficking hotline.
The project team has further extended its awareness-building and collaborative efforts by launching a statewide conference on trafficking; creating videos with the N.C. Division of Social Services to train foster parents and social workers to recognize youth trafficking; and running a prevention ad campaign using geofencing to target areas where law enforcement organizations suspected trafficking was occurring.
There is already evidence that the team’s work is bringing attention to trafficking at the statehouse level. For instance, U.S. Attorney Michael Easley recently announced the creation of a new human trafficking task force housed in the Raleigh area comprising 11 law enforcement agencies. Building on this success, Project NO REST now plans to place a new focus on trafficking of individuals with disabilities and agricultural workers.
“We are only expanding our efforts to stop the trafficking of North Carolina’s vulnerable individuals,” said Duncan.
THE BIG PICTURE
- Funded by $1.2 million grant from the Children’s Bureau and $5 million grant from the N.C. Governor’s Crime Commission
- Launched statewide survivor support campaign with over 20,000 radio and television broadcasts
- Funded anti-trafficking infrastructure in 17 N.C. counties
- Served 532 individuals in first two years
To read more articles in the School of Social Work 2023 Fall Impact Report, click here.
