December 20, 2007

UM Communication Scholar Wins United Nations First Prize On International Human Trafficking

Coral Gables, FL (Dec. 20) - The United Nations has announced that the First Prize Award in its worldwide competition to find the best methods of estimating the numbers of trafficked persons will go to Dr. Thomas Steinfatt of the University of Miami’s School of Communication.

In June 2007, the United Nations announced a worldwide competition to find the best methods of estimating the numbers of trafficked persons in specific geographic locations. Multiple entries in the competition were received from governments, universities, and NGOs in Europe, China, North America, Southeast Asia, and Australia, with twelve semifinalists announced in October. Six finalists were selected in November and invited to compete in an open public forum at the United Nations Regional Headquarters in Bangkok Thailand.

Entrants were given thirty minutes each to present the essentials of their method, followed by audience questioning and pointed questions from the judges.

Steinfatt began his work on human trafficking in the late 1980s in Southeast Asia. While studying interpersonal communication involved with the spread of HIV, he noted that some Southeast Asian women intended to go to another country, commonly Japan, to take jobs as waitresses, often a front for trafficking. His method is based on communication factors in the diffusion of information for entertainment venues, on theories of highly credible sources, and on methods of forming questions to taxi drivers and entertainment place owners and managers that elicit information on workers’ ability to leave the premises, their indebtedness to the business, and their age.  This communication basis requires that the numerical estimates come from actual counts of trafficked women and children by owners and managers, thus providing information on both numbers of trafficked women and children and on their specific location.

Steinfatt’s earlier work was assisted by a Fulbright grant to Cambodia in 2003 and its renewal in 2004, and additional funding from USAID and the US State Department to study the extent and types of human trafficking.

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Media Contact:
Bárbara Gutiérrez
305.284.3205
bgutierrez@miami.edu