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653 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 6 (2014)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0653 and id is 1 raw text is: INTRODUCTION New Directions in Research on Human Trafficking By RONALD WEITZER This article evaluates four popular claims regarding human trafficking's international magnitude, trends, and seriousness relative to other illicit global activities. I find that the claims are neither evidence-based nor verifiable. Second, an argument is made for carefully conducted microlevel research on trafficking. Several such studies are described, including the contributions to this volume of The ANNALS. I argue for microlevel research, which has advantages over grand, macrolevel claims-advantages that are both quantitative (i.e., identifying the magnitude of trafficking within a meas- urable context) and qualitative (i.e., documenting com- plexities in lived experiences)-and is better suited to formulating contextually appropriate policy and enforcement responses. Keywords: sex trafficking; labor trafficking; micro- level research; evidence-based policy Over the past 20 years, human trafficking has generated a tremendous amount of public attention throughout the world. The problem has received growing coverage in the media; antitrafficking activism has skyrocketed; and most countries have created new policies, laws, and enforcement mechanisms to tackle the problem.1 Yet much of the discourse, poli- cymaking, and enforcement has lacked an evi- dence basis, because so little high-quality research has been done on the topic (Weitzer 2011; Zhang 2012). Much of the popular writing on human traf- ficking has been anecdotal or sensationalistic, and most scholarly publications are either gen- eral overviews of the problem or critiques of the literature. A review of one hundred aca- demic articles found that few contained origi- nal data and most treated as sources or Ronald Weitzer is a professor of sociology at George Washington University. He has published extensively on human trafficking, sex work, and legal prostitution systems. DOI: 10.1177/0002716214521562 ANNALS, AAPSS, 653, May 2014 6

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