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Human trafficking is one of the most atrocious crimes and among the challenging problems facing law enforcement which demands attention of global magnitude. In this study, we leverage textual data from the website "Backpage"- used for…
This project tackles the pressing issue of human trafficking in online C2C marketplaces through advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. We introduce a novel methodology for generating pseudo-labeled datasets with minimal…
Web-based human trafficking activity has increased in recent years but it remains sparsely dispersed among escort advertisements and difficult to identify due to its often-latent nature. The use of intelligent systems to detect trafficking…
This research investigated how online criminal activities can be better understood and connected using data-driven machine learning methods. Many illegal activities, such as human trafficking and illicit trade, have moved to online…
Human trafficking is a serious social problem, and it is challenging mainly because of its difficulty in collecting and organizing related information. With the increasing popularity of social media platforms, it provides us a novel channel…
In the shadow of the digital revolution, the insidious issue of human trafficking has found new breeding grounds within the realms of social media and online job boards. Previous research efforts have predominantly centered on identifying…
While substantial efforts in anti-trafficking research and practice have focused on identifying and assisting victims after exploitation occurs, comparatively less attention has been paid to preventing victimization at the recruitment…
Human trafficking is a global epidemic affecting millions of people across the planet. Sex trafficking, the dominant form of human trafficking, has seen a significant rise mostly due to the abundance of escort websites, where human…
The Internet facilitates sex trafficking through adult service websites (ASWs) that host online advertisements for sexual services (sex ads). Since the closure of the popular site Backpage.com, the ecosystem of ASWs has expanded to include…
Wildlife trafficking remains a critical global issue, significantly impacting biodiversity, ecological stability, and public health. Despite efforts to combat this illicit trade, the rise of e-commerce platforms has made it easier to sell…
Sex trafficking is a global epidemic. Escort websites are a primary vehicle for selling the services of such trafficking victims and thus a major driver of trafficker revenue. Many law enforcement agencies do not have the resources to…
Human trafficking, the commercial exploitation of individuals, is a gross violation of human rights and harms societies, economies, health and development. The related disciplines of Operations Management (OM), Analytics, and Operations…
Case records on victims of human trafficking are highly sensitive, yet the ability to share such data is critical to evidence-based practice and policy development across government, business, and civil society. We present new methods to…
This study proposes a prototype for locating important individuals and financial exchanges in networks of people trafficking that have grown during the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. It focuses on the role of digital platforms,…
Human trafficking is a challenging law enforcement problem, and a large amount of such activity manifests itself on various online forums. Given the large, heterogeneous and noisy structure of this data, building models to predict instances…
Our study addresses the challenges of building datasets to understand the risks associated with organized activities and human trafficking through commercial sex advertisements. These challenges include data scarcity, rapid obsolescence,…
Human trafficking is a widespread and compound social, economic, and human rights issue occurring in every region of the world. While there have been an increasing number of anti-human trafficking works from the Operations Research and…
Child trafficking in a serious problem around the world. Every year there are more than 4 million victims of child trafficking around the world, many of them for the purposes of child sexual exploitation. In collaboration with UK Police and…
Social media is both helpful and harmful to the work against sex trafficking. On one hand, social workers carefully use social media to support people experiencing sex trafficking. On the other hand, traffickers use social media to groom…
Human trafficking (HT) is a pervasive global issue affecting vulnerable individuals, violating their fundamental human rights. Investigations reveal that a significant number of HT cases are associated with online advertisements (ads),…