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stopthelies

18 karma · joined December 15, 2015

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stopthelies··on Fighting Human Trafficking: Open Data, Big Data, and Python
Do you think that NGO's are going to hire me when what I shine the light on the statistics they use to justify their operating budget?

This is not the area my paper covers, and I don't want speak about any particular NGO by name, but creating a hyperbolic tale of "sex slaves" makes money for NGO's. In reality, if it's in fact the nightmarish horror that image conjures, I'm pleased to let you know law enforcement, government and charity is abundant for these victims.

Victims are helped, perpetrators are punished. For example, in China, pimping can have you executed. Every country offers counselor services where they'll print them a new temporary visa and even a ticket back home.

Many choose not to, they'd rather go try to find a way to go through the immigration system and get citizenship. This is off topic of my paper, but being a female and having a child may earn the mother favor toward getting naturalized in many places (laws, department/ministry policies or judge discretion).

Regarding the different NGO actors, this is even farther away from my area. But sometimes NGO's are actually fronts for GO's. An example would be USA using NGO's for subversion in Russia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_foreign_agent_law#Impl...). That said, way out of the area I'm collecting data on.

Regardless, this thesis is only a thesis. "Exposing" those who misrepresent NGO's isn't a career. What I want to tell you is that a lot of people pass on a humanistic message, when they're really hustling people.

If you do care about people, I think the best thing you can do is volunteer your time, skill and expertise. A good example is Médecins Sans Frontières.

stopthelies··on Fighting Human Trafficking: Open Data, Big Data, and Python
Fun. I'm doing my PhD thesis on human trafficking at DePaul University (in Chicago, Illinois).

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/real-men-get-their-facts-st...

I'm actually a little concerned about the concept of "human trafficking" since the stats being calculated tend to omit realities.

One big reality people ignore? People who pay and attempt to cross the border from Mexico to US? Those are counted as people being human trafficked.

>99% the immigrants that arrived illegally? Human trafficked, paper after paper when you read into them. They even count cases where they came alone, but had monetary help from a friend or family member.

So it's ironic. About my thesis - it points out the contradiction of people who push for the rights of illegal immigrants who propose fighting human trafficking, are really advocating the opposite position.

By extension, not mentioned in paper, I wanted to show for the longest time how people abuse "human trafficking" out of sheer political opportunism.

I'll gladly post the paper on my blog when it's checked by our department.