With Long Heng from Chab Dai

I just arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to spend three weeks working with the anti-human trafficking organization Chab Dai. Meaning “joining hands” in the Khmer language, Chab Dai is among a myriad of non-governmental organizations in Cambodia that are dedicated to ending modern day slavery. To say the least, it’s an honor and a privilege to partner with an NGO like Chab Dai. The director of the program, Helen Sworn, is a remarkable woman who has devoted her life toward ending slavery in Cambodia.

I first met Helen at the 2011 Human Trafficking Conference in Lincoln Nebraska. This conference is unique in that it invites a broad array of professionals in the field, including NGOs (both faith-based and secular), policy practitioners (local and domestic) and academics such as myself. I approached Helen after she made an excellent presentation and asked if I could be of assistance. Flash forward nearly one year later and I’m in Cambodia. I’ll be helping with a research program called The Butterfly Project, which is a ten year longitudinal study of survivors of human trafficking. To the best of my knowledge, very few NGOs that combat modern day slavery are working on such research topics. (A notable exception is Free the Slaves and their work on The Freedom Dividend, of which I am a part.)

The goal of The Butterfly Project is to assess how much, and in what ways, survivors of human trafficking are growing over time. The research team of the Butterfly Project, led by Siobhan Miles and Glenn Miles, has collected an impressive amount of survey data over the past two years. This fall, at the 2012 Human Trafficking Conference in Nebraska, we’ll present some preliminary descriptive statistics. Next year we’re planning on presenting an academic paper on the subject, which we plan to submit for publication with a peer-reviewed journal in the social sciences.