Evaluating Anti-Trafficking Interventions
Critical reflections and lessons from the field
Ella Cockbain (Editor), Aiden Sidebottom (Editor), Sheldon X. Zhang (Editor)
Despite vast investment in anti-trafficking measures worldwide, there is a stark lack of evidence of effective interventions. It is unethical and ineffective to keep throwing money at anti-trafficking efforts without a more nuanced understanding of how they can help and harm. After all, advances in crime prevention and harm reduction both rely heavily on evaluation science. There are also particular idiosyncrasies and challenges for evaluation in this domain, since human trafficking is such a complex and contested phenomenon.
Evaluating Anti-Trafficking Interventions focuses on the sharp end of criminal abuses and brings together contributors from across different perspectives, disciplines, backgrounds and geographies. It offers both practical guidance and critical reflections on the promises and pitfalls of evaluation for anti-trafficking interventions. The book also introduces foundational theory and practice around evaluations (including both qualitative and quantitative evidence), highlights innovative new directions and draws lessons from real-world case studies. It is designed to function both as a practical companion guide and to stimulate reflection on the tensions and constraints of funding, doing and assessing evaluations in this domain. Combining an accessible style, an applied focus and academic rigour, this book has much to offer practitioners, policymakers, students, academics and others working in different settings worldwide.
List of figures
List of tables
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction: when anti-trafficking meets evaluation
Ella Cockbain, Aiden Sidebottom and Sheldon X. Zhang
2 Success is in the eye of the funder: survivor engagement in anti-trafficking evaluation
Sabra Boyd
3 Use of randomised controlled trials to evaluate anti-trafficking programmes
Sheldon X. Zhang
4 Realist evaluation for anti-trafficking
Aiden Sidebottom, Ella Cockbain and Nick Tilley
5 Using agent-based modelling for anti-trafficking intervention theory development and evaluation
Alys McAlpine and Daniel Birks
6 Systematic reviews in the field of trafficking in human beings: possibilities and impossibilities
Peter van der Laan and Monika Smit
7 Evidence will not be enough: how moral panics and strategic interests bend policy and practice
Joel Quirk
8 Maximising the potential of anti-trafficking interventions through intervention development research
Ligia Kiss and Cathy Zimmerman
9 Impact evaluation of a trafficking-in-persons prevention programme in Cambodia
Protik Ali, Roy Ahn and Clifford Zinnes
10 Evaluation of a trial of Independent Child Trafficking Advocates
Patricia Hynes
11 The Blue Campaign: a case study on the evaluation of human trafficking informational campaigns
Elena Savoia and Rachael Piltch-Loeb
Index
DOI: 10.14324/111.9781800089587
Publication date: 18 November 2025
PDF ISBN: 9781800089587
EPUB ISBN: 9781800089594
Hardback ISBN: 9781800089563
Paperback ISBN: 9781800089570
Ella Cockbain (Editor)
Ella Cockbain is Professor of Human Trafficking and Exploitation at UCL and Visiting Research Fellow at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Her research focuses primarily on human trafficking, sexual violence and labour market exploitation. She cares about encouraging more evidence-informed, ethical and inclusive policy and practice. Ella leads UCL’s Research Group on Human Trafficking, Smuggling and Exploitation and teaches and supervises extensively on these topics. She is a former co-chair and current member of the UK’s national working group on preventing modern slavery. Ella was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for her research in social policy.
Aiden Sidebottom (Editor)
Aiden Sidebottom is Professor of Policing and Crime Prevention at the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science at UCL. His main research interests are problem-oriented policing, crime analysis and the police response to missing people.
Sheldon X. Zhang (Editor)
Sheldon X. Zhang is Professor of Criminology and Justice Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He is also Senior Research Fellow at NORC at University of Chicago. His recent research primarily revolves around transnational human smuggling and trafficking. He has extensive expertise in designing and conducting social surveys.
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