MRS Social Research Award: STOP THE TRAFFIK
In December we were over the moon to receive two MRS Awards (the award for Public Policy Social Research and the Liz Nelson Grand Prix for Social Impact) for our work with STOP THE TRAFFIK to tackle human trafficking between Lithuania and the UK. Below we share some insight into our experience working on this challenging topic.
The context
Human trafficking is a global business that affects over 40 million people worldwide. STOP THE TRAFFIK works to systematically disrupt human trafficking through an intelligence-led approach to prevention. Human traffickers need to recruit 8 million people each year to keep the business afloat: to stem this recruitment, STT uses social media campaigns to geo-target those at risk.
STT identified Lithuania as a key region for workers being trafficked into the UK and suffering from widespread labour exploitation in agriculture, food processing, and underground activities such as sexual exploitation, and were looking to develop a campaign focused on this route.
STT’s campaigns had previously been developed using secondary data, but they were now looking for deeper insight. This prompted their partnership with us.
The brief
Research was needed to shape a behaviour change campaign that would be broadcast via Facebook and Instagram, alongside interventions delivered by local NGOs. We needed to explore the experience of people at all stages of the journey, from understanding risk factors amongst groups in Lithuania, through to exploring the exploitation being experienced in the UK; to develop a campaign that would raise awareness of the risks and encourage safer behaviours at every stage of the journey.
Subsequent stages of research were required post-campaign, to monitor and evaluate the impact of the work both in the UK and Lithuania, in order to refine and develop a process that could be replicated in other regions and projects.
This all needed to be delivered on an extremely tight budget, and with the further challenge of reaching a target audience largely hidden by the very nature of their circumstances; and to encourage them to discuss experiences and feelings that are often suppressed due to the illegality of behaviours, fear of reprisals or deportation, and social stigma.
Campaign development research
Recruitment
Our approach to finding participants needed to be sensitive and flexible – this wasn’t something we could achieve through typical research recruitment. We worked closely with local NGOs in both countries to identify initial recruits both in three ‘sender’ communities in Lithuania and two exploitation ‘hotspots’ in Lincolnshire. Our selection of respondents covered a wide range of experiences - from individuals living in sheltered accommodation in Lithuania, to people in the midst of international legal battles involving traffickers, to those working in exploitative conditions in cramped factories in the UK or who had escaped more extreme situations.
Approach
The research approach ensured respondents felt comfortable opening up about such a personal issue. We conducted individual interviews with those keen to speak privately, friendship triads with those who preferred the support of others with shared experiences, focus groups with people more comfortable talking about their experiences, and phone interviews for discretion where needed. We also conducted interviews with staff at service delivery charities in both countries to learn from their experience and observations.
Discussions were handled sensitively: where people felt comfortable we explored personal experiences first (using individual pre-interviews before group discussions where relevant) before exploring stimulus; or we used stimulus as a prompt, helping people to share their story. We also encouraged people to imagine different experiences using visualisation of journeys from Lithuania to the UK, both good and bad, to help uncover the realities, fears, stigmas and myths around migration, and to explore people’s grasp of the dangers and risks. As well as campaign ideas, stimulus included “other people have said” statements that encouraged people to verbalise thoughts that might otherwise not have felt permissible.
Key insights
We unearthed the key insight that for many people the reality of exploitation is subtle and coercive rather than violent, meaning they rarely recognised their experience as typical, and therefore hadn’t realised support services were aimed at them. We also learnt about the shame that many people feel having been exploited, and the stigma around it, meaning that many returnees to Lithuania never talked about their experience – with some saying we were the first people they had ever opened up to about it; and the widespread assumption in Lithuania that you have to be naive to be at risk of exploitation – a perception amplified by campaigns featuring exaggerated villains and extreme portrayals.
This helped inform a campaign with a broader, and therefore more widely relevant, vision of exploitation. The campaign ran in summer 2019 and repeated in autumn, presenting viewers with signs to help identify recruitment and control methods, giving details of local support organisations, and a link to learn more about UK workers’ rights. For those experiencing more subtle exploitation, like being forced into jobs paid below minimum wage or having wages stolen from them by managers, this was the first time a depiction of exploitation had really spoken to them, helping them realise support was available.
This understanding of more subtle forms of exploitation also challenged partner NGOs’ ideas, prompting them to adapt the ways in which they interacted with service users and develop more inclusive prevention efforts.
“We need more simple stories like this because that is how it happens, it’s not usually cruel, violent exploitation. This is something people can recognise” - Partner NGO, Lithuania
Monitoring and evalution
Post-campaign we undertook short-term and longer-term evaluation of impact, combining: phone interviews with people who had viewed the campaign; data monitoring of Facebook uptake and response; evaluation of online conversations; interviews with key charities to assess the volume and nature of enquiries; and quantitative surveys conducted via Facebook with the target audience.
The evaluation was adaptive, meaning that we used the initial exploratory research to shape objectives and help identify potential indicators of change – for example the level and nature of enquiries to local NGOs and support services.
Campaign impact
The campaign reached 52% of the population of Lithuania on Facebook and 92% of Lithuanians in Lincolnshire on Facebook. Having watched the video, 21% in the UK and 31% in Lithuania said they would behave differently in a potential trafficking situation – a huge impact for a low-budget campaign.
Requests for support to the charities mentioned in the film increased significantly as an outcome of the campaign, often with direct reference to the film as a trigger. The partner charities noticed a marked increase in openness and confidence of callers in talking about personal experiences, as well as greater awareness of risks and ways to increase safety.
“When they called, they started speaking about their experiences very quickly, at the very beginning of the conversation. [The video] acted like a kind of key to open their personal experience. In the past when they called, they were shy and unsure” - Partner NGO, Lithuania
Longer term evaluation found that 64% of UK respondents and 53% in Lithuania had taken relevant action in the months following the campaign. Evidence of this came through evaluation interviews too: people reported discussing personal experiences of human trafficking with others for the first time after seeing the campaign, as well as sharing content with those they felt needed to see it.
As a result of the campaign’s proven impact, the UK Embassy and Lithuanian government have both committed to investing in further stages of work by STT. Local NGOs are using the films in their training with vulnerable groups in Lithuania, finding it to be a valuable asset in helping people better understand the realities of exploitation and the subtle signs of danger, and thereby expanding the reach of the campaign.
Throughout the research process, learning was developed and shared on an ongoing basis with STT and partners, culminating in a set of reports with actionable recommendations (including this) encouraging the sector to use them to shape more effective campaigns in other countries and situations.
We’d like to say a huge thank you to Stop The Traffik for choosing to partner with Humankind Research for this important work. For more information on this project, please contact alex@humankind-research.com
