Impact of the Center for Forensic Investigation of Trafficking in Persons

Enhanced Victim Support

In addition to the forensic work, CFITP has also worked on grants that focus on victim/survivor aftercare. The center completed a 4-year grant cycle focusing on evaluating the services provided to the victims of human trafficking in conjunction with the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants (CIRI). CIRI is an over a century-old nonprofit organization working on providing service and advocacy to survivors of human trafficking, torture, immigrants, and refugees. This evaluation grant was offered by the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC). This project was more so qualitative in nature than other projects. This allowed us to venture into topics such as humanities and psychology to create survey tools and collaborative work which proved to be extremely rewarding. We hope to continue working on such endeavors.

Online Expoloitation

CFITP has led in developing integrated methods to address online sexual exploitation as well as the production and dissemination of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Early activities involved direct assistance to law enforcement entities in the United States as well as Costa Rica, mainly in efforts to combat sexual exploitation facilitated through Backpage. In 2020, efforts focused on the rapid increase in online sexual exploitation, with a specific focus on OnlyFans. The work of the Center and other partners in a US-based collaboration has taken the lead in the fight against online domestic exploitation, specifically OnlyFans. This collaborative group made significant advances within Congress and other Federal agencies, including FINCen and FBI. Moreover, we have worked with leadership at OnlyFans, NCMEC, and NCOSE. Several webinars and training sessions have been provided by this collaborative team.

Based on the rapidly emerging trends that expand the scope and magnitude of online sexual exploitation and CSAM additional funded research and related training activities must become a larger focus of CFITP. These new methods include greater utilization of popular social media platforms to attract, victimize, and monetize these activities. Moreover, methods have expanded to include Live Streaming platforms that allow for real-time exploitation, almost always beyond the capacity for law enforcement to detect. In addition, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly evolving in this area. The many aspects of AI assistance will make an already difficult task of monitoring or combating this activity a significant challenge. Faculty at UNH have already submitted applications to NIJ funding requests to address the problems of identifying and monitoring indicators of human trafficking in online media using automated tools and machine learning.

Prevention Education

This year CFITP seeks to add another element to the mission – “Early Education and Outreach Programs”. This will act as a preventative measure for children and young adults, preparing them to identify and report crimes such as human trafficking and sexual violence. To achieve this goal, we aim to create educational modules that can help schools and colleges teach crucial aspects of victimization by these crimes. Currently, the University of New Haven is one of the few schools that teach undergraduate and graduate-level courses related to Human Trafficking. The prevention education project will work with non-profit and governmental organizations, such as education departments, to make these modules readily available via electronic distribution. Moreover, certain law enforcement programs, such as School Resource Officer programs, will also be approached to incorporate these materials in their school safety education curriculum.

Government Relations and Advocacy

Christine Pellerin, founding partner of the Normandy Group and co-leads Normandy’s higher education policy practices and works closely with the University of New Haven in government relations work. With more than 30 years of experience working on Capital Hill, Christine is an expert in the appropriations process and works tirelessly with us on our collective efforts on OnlyFans and CSAM issues.