The SIREN Method

Prior to reading chapter two of Half the Sky, “Prohibition and Prostitution”, I was aware of human trafficking, and sex trafficking around the world; I was also aware that Toledo, all too close to home, is a major hub for sex trafficking within the United States. However, I admit to never truly understanding the enormous number of people being shipped and transported around the world in order to keep this industry alive and growing. Half the Sky does an amazing job of presenting personal stories and the struggles of those living currently in the trafficking industry as well as those who have been fortunate enough to escape, however, the chapter ends without sufficiently tackling the issue of how many people are being trafficked. The Polaris Project sheds some light on this question with estimations of the numbers in the United States alone, “with 100,000 children estimated to be in the sex trade in the United States each year, it is clear that the total number of human trafficking victims in the U.S. reaches into the hundreds of thousands when estimates of both adults and minors and sex trafficking and labor trafficking are aggregated” (Polaris Project). Statistics such as this are staggering, but what really stops me in my tracks in knowing that this accounts for only one country in the world. So, how many people are being trafficked around the globe today? While I cannot say I am surprised, I am sad to discover that there is not an effective way to every truly know how many people are being trafficked around the world. In 2008, The United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP) created a competition to find/create a statistical method to estimate the number of victims of human trafficking in a specific region (SIREN Method). The compilation of the winning plans is known as the Strategic Information Response Network, or the SIREN Method (SIREN Method). However, from my understanding, the SIREN Method has yet to be implemented, and the numbers of people suffering at the hands of human trafficking remains unknown or just a vague estimation. I will be interested to see how the SIREN Method holds up when implemented.