Victim-Centered Approach for Detection of Human Trafficking Victims
a humanitarian element . For example , the Federal Ministry of the Interior issued a reception order in 2014 providing special treatment to refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria ( Federal Office for Migration and Refugees 2014 ). In response to the European migration crisis , while initially declaring Germany a quota-free country , domestic politics and the burden of increasing migrants led President Angela Merkel to shift policy ( Wagstyl & Rachman , 2016 ). In accordance with the European Commission ’ s quota system , Germany established a policy of accepting 27,000 migrants per year , although this number is much larger in practice when one accounts for the various other forms of immigration ( BBC News , 2016 ).
Approach
Research Question
In the context of the migration crisis , the complex dynamics of stakeholder interactions — shaped by fear , mistrust , vulnerability , and political considerations — have significantly influenced the behavior of state authorities and migrants . This paper introduces an agent-based model that explores the conditions in which a victim-centered approach to human trafficking is implemented in the context of the current European migration crisis . It seeks to answer the following questions , given the scenario of migrants at a country border and assumptions for the communication channels across the migrant population :
• Does a victim-centered approach improve detection of trafficking victims ?
• How does a state ’ s immigration policy affect the willingness of human trafficking victims to self-identify ( i . e ., cooperate ) and , in turn , the state ’ s ability to identify those victims ?
• Does a tipping point exist with respect to initial cooperation levels at which the victim-centered approach will be effective , given spatial and network influences ?
Prior Modeling Approaches
Human trafficking has garnered some attention in the academic and research community , although few computational modeling applications to the problem exist . A notable exception is the extensive systems dynamics model of forced labor human trafficking ( Parakh , 2016 ), although it does not address the vulnerability of migrant populations . A systems dynamics modeling approach also does not address the complexity of the system with respect to interactions between individuals ( Amin , 2010 ). However , the authors have not seen an implementation of such models . Some like Gutierrez-Garcia , Orozco-Aguirre , and Landassuri-Moreno ( 2013 ) use agent-based models to explore the emergent qualities of crime by focusing on the conditions and interactions that lead individuals to perpetrate crimes . Pint , Crooks , and Gellar ( 2010 ) go a step further to explore the emergence of organized crime and criminal networks . Neither of these efforts addresses victims of crime , and both focus on crimes like gang activity or drug dealing and use that are fundamentally different from human trafficking for reasons noted previously . With respect to migration modeling , some research has been published , but the instances we found were not in the context of human traffick-
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