Arthur Jones: What is labor trafficking?
Dr. Theresa Kulig: Labor trafficking is broadly compelling someone to engage in labor through generally force or coercion, and that is where they either cannot leave that situation, or they cannot leave without suffering serious harm.
Jones: Tell me about this study you published.
Kulig: It was a two-year journey of trying to really get an exploratory understanding of labor trafficking in the state of Nebraska. So we worked with our Advisory Board, which included practitioners and subject matter experts to really try to figure out the best way to how can we learn more about this crime that’s very difficult to detect…We did a survey out to practitioners in all sorts of sectors and divisions in Nebraska. And then we did follow up interviews with interested folks who could share more as practitioners about their experiences, and survivors of labor trafficking.
Jones: When you talk about practitioners, what exactly do you mean by that?
Kulig: Practitioners, it’s capturing a wide net of folks, so law enforcement, personnel, service providers, attorneys, medical personnel… So just anyone who could possibly come in contact with labor trafficking survivors.
Jones: What were some of the challenges that you found?
Kulig: Some of the key challenges that they brought up to us…Sometimes it wasn’t always clear what agency should take lead in a labor trafficking investigation. For investigators, not all agencies, had a lot of experience with labor trafficking. And these are very complex cases, very time-consuming. They can take years…Other challenges included things like the survivor’s own fear and mistrust of police, right? So if somebody even was identified, if they didn’t trust law enforcement, then they were unlikely to cooperate with the investigation, provide additional information, and that could really slow the progress of an investigation as well… There were also language barriers, so in this study, there wasn’t one at risk demographic group that was identified, but we did identify based on the respondents’ experiences that oftentimes the survivors were Hispanic or Latino origin. They were oftentimes foreign born, and then they were both adults and children. And so overall, for both the investigators and the service provider sections of kind of the questions we were asking, everything was discussed as it’s very complicated in general, but then it’s exacerbated in rural areas, where some of those resources are even fewer.
Jones: So fairly recently there was a labor trafficking bust here in Omaha. Do you feel like that was handled well and helped mitigate some of those challenges you just mentioned?
Kulig: I’ve read a bit on that operation, right? And I would say that that is, again, a sign of how Nebraska is taking labor trafficking very seriously…looking at the different agencies, organizations, the service providers, who are involved in that response, is sort of the ideal in how you want some of these operations to go, right? You see law enforcement going in, but then you also see that there is responsiveness and caretaking for the people who’ve been harmed by the alleged perpetrators. Historically, that’s not always been the case, where sometimes it’s just everybody gets arrested, and here I feel like Nebraska took a victim centered approach in responding and trying to identify and making sure that the survivors had the resources and support they needed after that federal operation.
Jones: What if any were sort of the conclusions reached by this exploratory study,
Kulig: So, the study itself was set to address three sort of research objectives. Like, what does this even look like here in the state? And then what are the challenges of investigations? And then what are the challenges of service provision? We argue that the state could take stock of what resources actually exist across the state of Nebraska, and compiling those, identifying where they are in the regions, and then in making targeted investments. There are not many agencies that explicitly serve labor trafficking victims, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not agencies who could assist, and maybe they just need some supplemental resources to build up their capacity to do so. But we argue that, again, thinking about these not as independent pieces, but as needing that collaborative approach, is a center on labor trafficking, would be able to sort of consolidate these resources serve as a touchstone point for the community and for practitioners in the field, be able to compile models on what’s maybe effective, from jurisdictions outside of Nebraska. And then facilitating trainings and supporting that cross agency collaboration, of where do we go? Who do we talk to? How can we maybe manage our data better so we can track these systems? That would be something a center on labor trafficking would really be able to accomplish.
Jones: It’s been a pleasure to talk to you Dr. Kulig.
Kulig: Thank you so much. And for anyone interested, please, you know, feel free. The report is publicly available. We’re always open to questions.
Jones: This has been Dr. Theresa Kulig, I am Arthur Jones, Nebraska Public Media News.
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