Evaluation of anti-trafficking policy and legislation in relation to male victims of labour exploitation, and public attitudes towards trafficked men

This PhD project brings together insights in political psychology and law studies, to address an important question: what are the psychological and legal processes that explain the reduced visibility of male victims in the human trafficking discourse? The project seeks to understand the relationship between social norms and the prevalence of discriminatory attitudes towards adult males trafficked for labour exploitation, focusing on research on the political psychological understanding of masculinities, victimhood and stigma formation.

The project adopts a methodologically triangulated research design. It will systematically examine anti-trafficking policies and legislation using a 'gender-screened' codebook, conduct survey experiments with the general public to measure the effects of age, gender and trafficking purpose, hold semi-structured interviews with a range of community-based, legal and political participant groups to measure gender-related attitudes to human trafficking, and conduct ethnographic-based observations of community members to gain qualitative insights on related attitudes.

The project will gain in-depth understanding of the prevalent perceptions towards trafficked men, and the ways and the purposes for which they are formed and reproduced. The project will also generate policy recommendations with a view to include male victims in the trafficking discourse and challenge gender-based discriminatory attitudes.