You may have seen, or been a contributor to, prevention education programs whose primary purpose is to warn youth about the risk of becoming a human trafficking victim. Such programs recognize a range of factors that make someone vulnerable to being coerced, exploited, or abused. However, such programs rarely address the likelihood that the groups to whom the program is delivered will include youth who grow up not to become victims, but to become perpetrators of abuse, exploitation, and coercion. This presentation will describe how character values development through youth prevention education could be a powerful approach to preventing people from becoming human trafficking perpetrators, where “perpetrators” includes people in the various trafficking roles as well as consumers who generate the demand for goods and services of trafficking victims. Prevention education curricula with this aim will include several key elements, including raising awareness about the nature of human trafficking, understanding the pathways that lead to human trafficking, and understanding the likely consequences of human trafficking for both victims and perpetrators. Most importantly, the curricula will develop character values – especially those in the Respect, Fairness, and Caring categories of the Josephson Institute of Ethics Six Pillars of Character. The “Perpetrators” module of the IHTSJ Conference High School Online Program (HSOP) will be demonstrated as one example of this concept. Beyond describing and demonstrating a new component of prevention education, this session calls for participants to replicate the approach within their own programs.
Matthew Clarke is the principal researcher for the Freedom Keys Research Project, with a background in information technology, knowledge management, international development, and peace making. Matthew is a Senior Scholar in the Global Association of Human Trafficking Scholars, and brings an analytic perspective to the task of making anti-trafficking interventions effective.