Human Trafficking in Nepal: Raising Awareness

The Democracy Fellows and Grants (DFG) program has recently published Reducing Vulnerability to Human Trafficking, a Research and Innovation Grants working paper by Margaret Boittin of York University and Cecilia Hyunjung Mo of Vanderbilt University, along with Dan Archer from Empathetic Media. The research team conducted a series of randomized controlled trials in Nepal to determine the effectiveness of various types of mass media campaigns designed to raise awareness about human trafficking among vulnerable populations and to influence knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and practices related to human trafficking. Overall, empowerment narratives were more effective than fear-based narratives, although narratives overall performed better than informational posters. In addition, narrative formats—whether radio, graphic novel, or audio-visual—all ranked equally well, although the cost-effectiveness and wide reach of radio in countries like Nepal make it the logical policy preference.

The DFG program is funded through USAID’s Center of Excellence in Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance and managed by the Institute of International Education. More papers in this series will be published throughout 2016, and made available on DFG’s website.

The full paper is available here.