Blog Assignment: Sex. Sin & SNA ? Using Social Network Analysis to bust human trafficking Saurabh Timochin
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Human trafficking, is perhaps one of the oldest industries that has thrived due to its ability to leverage its strong social networks. As society progressed into the internet era, hum*an traffickers have also taken advantage of the ability to connect with potential victims and strengthen their network.
Traffickers have started to use social media for recruitment and to spread their network.Technologies to piece together these elusive digital trails, may be where SNA(Social Network Analysis) can step in and help analyze trails of the traffickers and their victims .
Presently governments have difficulties with tracking technologies such as IP tracking, due to its limitations to monitor such activities and its limited effectiveness at PREDICTING a traffickers next move on a victim.
While getting information from victims may be tough and difficult for governments to share across borders, a simple date base of information such as:
a) outgoing and incoming phone calls of known traffickers
b) tracking social network activity and groups
c) identifying recruitment of "domestic laborers"
By analyzing these variables, a density analysis between each node could help visualize how far flung their networks really are. Upon reading various reports on how traffickers operate I believe that a typical SNA analysis would look something like this
Patterns will begin to emerge and through and a propinquity analysis, it will become easy to identify individuals connected beyond the obvious circle of associates (outlined in red)
If possible, feedback gathered from victims on how they entered the trade could be traced back,
an eigenvector analysis could help determine, how similar recruitment patters have been in the past.
There are key nodes (individuals) in ever region that drive this industry. Unfortunately it is difficult to reach the main "drivers" of the industry and thus the flesh trade industry continues to thrive.
If an efficient SNA is put it place it would greatly help - profile, mark and then analyze all pawns in this unforgiving chess field.
5 comments:
A good idea, but lacking in detail (what data, even if difficult to get? what's the connecting network measure? what's an "efficient SNA?") Also, you use terms like eigenvector analysis and density without demonstrating what they would add to the analysis. There are several posts from previous class on the blog you might have consulted that would have helped you flesh this out a bit more.
Dear Prof,
thank you for your comments on my blog.
After reading your message I understand where I was lacking,
I have added to the areas you outlined and updated my blog.
Thank you
Saurabh
Still a ways to go, but better.
I think a bit more information on how human trafficking operates might help this post. I am wondering if there is information on how many victims "escape" or find their way out, and how much information they are willing or able to share. The challenge of obtaining insightful data is daunting here.
Also how many"known traffickers" are being tracked in some way?
In addition, I would be interested in following the money-- who is getting paid off to keep this business thriving?
Thank you for your comments.
I agree with Christina, information is daunting for sure.
I had a friend in India who worked on a documentary called BrotHELL
and have actually mailed him to explore SNA as a real tool to help understand where the root cause of the problem lies.
Its exciting to see how many varied applications SNA can be applied to.
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