Envisioning the Future of Anti-Trafficking Efforts: Insights from the Tech Against Trafficking Summit and Transnational Law Conference

Center for Human Rights and International Justice Director of Human Trafficking Research Jessie Brunner recently returned from an energizing week of convenings of key business leaders, anti-trafficking practitioners, policymakers, researchers, technologists, and individuals with lived experience.

First stop was the fourth Tech Against Trafficking (TAT) Summit, hosted by BSR and Microsoft at their Redmond, WA headquarters. TAT aims to advance the use of technology to prevent, disrupt, and reduce human trafficking and to address the misuse of technology to facilitate the crime. This year’s summit set out to develop a set of voluntary principles to counter online trafficking and drive collective action, contribute to building a consolidated library of forced labor proxy data points and validating key elements for a forced labor data standard, and addressing data analysis and reporting challenges through the use of artificial intelligence. Brunner was joined at the summit by Re:Structure Lab Co-PI Prof. Genevieve Le Baron.

Representing the Stanford Human Trafficking Data Lab, Brunner presented to TAT attendees on “Novel Data-Centric Approaches to Forced Labor Detection,” offering a case study based on the Lab’s work in Brazil using remote detection tools combined with administrative data analysis and AI to identify cases where forced labor and illegal deforestation intersect. 

“At a time when there is so much uncertainty around funding for global anti-trafficking efforts and governmental commitments to addressing this gross human rights violation, it was uplifting to be in community with so many committed advocates and activists,” Brunner said.

Brunner went on to travel to Ann Arbor to participate in the University of Michigan Law School’s Transnational Law Conference on the theme of “Forced Labor, Trafficking, and Recruitment: Measuring Progress in the Movement for Equitable Supply Chains.” The event was organized by Re:Structure Lab collaborator Amb. Lou CdeBaca alongside Profs. Chavi Keeney Nana, Bridgette Carr, and Elizabeth Campbell of Michigan Law’s Human Trafficking and Immigration Clinic.

Select attendees participated in a generative design thinking exercise to envision the next 25 years of global anti-trafficking work as we marked the 25th anniversary of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children as well as the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. The following day, several panels addressed key themes such as ethical recruitment, the application of AI in anti-trafficking efforts, and the role of governments. Brunner moderated a panel on legal strategies featuring pathbreaking anti-trafficking advocates Martina Vandenberg of the Human Trafficking Legal Center, Jane Khodarkovsky of Arktouros pllc, and Agnieszka Fryszman of Cohen Milstein.