Kena Fedorschak, Srivatsav Kandala, Rashmi Krishnamurthy, and I have a paper accepted at the Ninth International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology. The paper, Data Analytics and Human Trafficking, highlights our efforts toward building IT solutions to combat human trafficking at the ASU Decision Theater.
Human trafficking is recognized internationally as an extreme form of violence against women, children, and men. Despite the fact that human trafficking is universally understood to be a burgeoning social problem, a paucity of data and insight into this issue exists. Data analytics has immense potential to elucidate trends in complex social data and inform future policy. We undertook a design science-inspired research approach to build datasets on human trafficking. Three prototypes are presented that describe the methodologies of human traffickers, display correlations between calls reporting suspected trafficking activity and various demographic data, and explicate the effectiveness of US anti-trafficking funding projects.