Computational models of sex trafficking are abstracting traumatic experiences of victims.  Our team recognizes that we cannot possibly capture all the complexities of the lived experiences of victims.  We seek to build operations research models to help disrupt sex trafficking in ethical, responsible manners.

We feel that domain experts outside of operations research and lived experience experts from outside of academia are crucial to accomplish this goal.  We implemented an operations research modeling process where these experts inform conceptualizations, assumptions, and data.

We are building the some of the first operations research models that are being co-produced with lived experience experts and believe that our inclusive research process is capturing unintended consequences of well-meaning interventions. 

Operations Research Modeling Process for Sex Trafficking: Courtesy of Sharkey et al. (2021)

The results of accessing the hidden data allowed us to create a network generator that produces realistic sex trafficking networks.  The network generator introduces the idea of 'pods' of victims - who are all connected to one another but not connected to other victims of the trafficker - and captures how a "main girl" influences the number of victims in the network. 

This data helps to test network interdiction models and analytics in a way that is grounded in the reality of certain types of trafficking operations.  

Realistic Network Example: Courtesy of Kosmas et al. (2024a)

Measuring the Importance of Capturing Network Reactions: Courtesy of Kosmas et al. (2024a)

Our modeling approaches have helped to better understand how the trafficking network reacts to disruptions by restructuring its operations.  These reactions include recruiting new victims.  Our analysis shows the importance of coupling efforts to remove victims from their trafficking environments while simultaneously disrupting the ability of the traffickers to recruit new victims (Kosmas et al., 2024b).  

Sex trafficking victims are often required to participate in illegal, revenue-generating activities beyond commercial sex.  Our team has created and analyzed an operational model of a sex trafficking network with additional forced criminality.  The idea for this inquiry arose from our survivor-centered research partners and has led to the first network model of sex trafficking co-produced with lived experience experts.

Forced Criminality Network Model: Courtesy of Clark et al. (2023)