PhD Student Callie Hansson’s Research Uncovers the Realities of U.S. Child Labor Trafficking

By Enryka Christopher 

Enryka Christopher (EC): Tell me a little bit about your background and what drew you to the PhD at Northeastern. 

Callie Hansson (CH): I got interested in studying sex trafficking and digital technology back when I studied at UMASS for my undergraduate degree in Journalism. My mentor, Dr. Joshua Braun studied the politics of media distribution policies and inspired me to pursue my own research interests by winning scholarships. When I started thinking about graduate school, I read about the work of Professors Amy Farrell and Carlos Cuevas. Their research into labor trafficking opened my eyes to this broader topic of human trafficking. I knew I wanted to work in this field, and I was advised to go to graduate school where there were researchers already doing the type of stuff I wanted to do. Northeastern was the perfect fit once I saw what these professors were doing. 

EC: What are you currently focusing on in your PhD at Northeastern? 

CH: One project I’m currently focusing on has been funded by the National Institute of Justice. It explores how common child labor trafficking is in the US, for both US and non-US citizens. It has given us a good understanding of the various differences between different forms of child labor trafficking, as well as how the cognitive underdevelopment of youth impacts the way labor trafficking manifests in children versus adults. I also gathered data through a public opinion survey on how people perceive certain cases as child labor trafficking, and whether they support punitive or rehabilitative measures to resolve each case.  

EC: Why is your PhD research important to the world? 

CH: Child labor trafficking seems like such a unique crime, but it is actually something that is very connected to other social problems and comes in many forms. Anti-trafficking efforts that focus on criminal punishment are not solving the issue because they only address the problem after the fact. If we want to actually prevent trafficking, we need to better understand how to recognize it. People care about stopping trafficking, but too many people don’t know what it actually looks like, because the representation of it in our media doesn’t reflect the lived experience of survivors. Having a better understanding of how the general public perceives child labor trafficking can help us figure out what social policy changes must be made to increase people’s awareness of how to spot and stop it.   

EC: What has been the most surprising/unexpected piece about your research process, or what you’ve seen from your data analysis (if you’ve reached that point)? 

CH: Cases of child labor trafficking can look so different from each other, but they are all still trafficking. Some of those differences are between various industries, like restaurants versus factories versus farm work, but other differences include the levels of criminality involved. A child involved in agriculture, domestic, or restaurant work might be doing it to help their family, and many times people don’t perceive that as child labor. The pubic tends to think that child labor trafficking only looks like sex trafficking or human smuggling of immigrants, because that’s the stereotype. We are seeing more force and coercion used in getting kids to do criminal activities than we expected, especially those who have some prior history of delinquency. However, things like poverty, family dysfunction, and other negative social determinants increase the vulnerability of children to labor traffickers, so focusing on preventing these things will do a lot to prevent this type of exploitation.  

EC: What has been the most exciting part about doing your PhD at Northeastern? 

CH: I’m in my 5th year and looking forward to graduating this summer. I find it exciting and inspiring that the work I did was on child labor trafficking, and I was able to dive into that topic by taking a project manager role on a huge federally funded grant.  

EC: What do you hope to do once you graduate? 

CH: I’d like to go to advocacy groups or research institutes. I don’t want to pigeonhole myself and stick to just one small topic. I would rather learn broader applied research, like how the findings from research are being implemented in the community and in practice. 

EC: What would you say to a potential student who is interested in a PhD program at Northeastern? 

CH: I would tell them that it’s obviously a lot of work, but if a PhD is something you want to do, then it is worth it. But make sure it is something you want to do! There are lots of people here at Northeastern who are really great at doing this work on child trafficking.  

EC: Is there anything else you’d like to say regarding your PhD journey at Northeastern? 

CH: I have really enjoyed the acceptance in the Northeastern community. I hope they can continue to support their students to feel like they belong.