Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Individuals with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to the plight of human trafficking for a variety of reasons. These include, but are not limited to, reliance on caretakers, unequal power dynamics in relationships, propensity to live more isolated lives, and potential communication challenges. Despite people with disabilities being at greater risk for human trafficking, the questions of if and how disability organizations identify victims of human trafficking have not yet been addressed. Moreover, there is currently very little peer-reviewed evidence on trafficking of people with disabilities, with most research conducted internally by nonprofit organizations and shared only through trainings or webinars. The few screening procedures that have been developed focus primarily on identifying human trafficking victims with physical disabilities, not developmental or psychiatric. This project explores the existing screening and intake procedures of disability organizations through the use of qualitative methods, including in-depth semi-structured interviews and document analysis of screening and intake policies. Using exponential non-discriminative chain-referral sampling, this project interviewed over 20 organizations that provide services for persons with disabilities in Chicago. Ultimately, this project sheds new light on the rarely investigated issue of identifying human trafficking victims with disabilities, reflects on the need for specialized screening tools for nonprofit organizations working with people with disabilities, and has significant implications for policy aimed at combating the human trafficking of persons with disabilities.