Research

Trafficking in persons

Each year, millions of individuals, the majority women and children, are tricked, sold, coerced or otherwise forced into situations of exploitation from which they cannot escape.

This movement of persons through deceptive or coercive means, known as trafficking is the subject of a new research project led by Dr Maggy Lee of the Department of Sociology. Her research aims to explore the experiences of trafficked persons, before, during and after trafficking, and the diverse strategies that migrants adopt to minimise trafficking harm.

In practice, identifying the exploitation that constitutes trafficking is extremely difficult, as Dr Lee explained: 'There is evidence to suggest that the line between the exploitation of migrant workers, as casual workers in irregular economies, undocumented or illegal migrants, sex workers or domestic servants, and trafficking, through forced labour or debt bondage for example, is often blurred. In fact, it may be more appropriate to speak of a ‘continuum of harms’ which encompasses the more routine experiences of migrant workers to the more extreme forms of physical and psychological abuses of trafficked persons.'

Dr Lee's research involves in-depth interviews with migrants and practitioners and will be conducted mainly in London and Hong Kong. The project is three-fold: Dr Lee will gather up-to-date information on the nature and organisation of trafficking in persons from China to the UK and rest of Europe; investigate the broad spectrum of harms and abuses that migrant men and women experience; and identify the types of enabling strategies that men and women adopt in order to avoid, minimise, or cope with trafficking harms.

As Dr Lee explained: 'To date we know very little about the perspectives and experiences of the victims of trafficking. Despite the exploitation and the extreme abuse many trafficked persons face, they do not always see themselves - or are perceived and treated by authorities in the sending, transit or destination countries - as ‘victims’. Whilst some may be trapped in a cycle of debt and violence, others may be more successful in overcoming trafficking harms and reducing the dependence of their communities on the need for traffickers to arrange and sustain their migration.'

E-Voting from Belgrade to Blackpool

The expertise of Bob Watt, from the Department of Law, on the legal aspects of introducing e-voting took him to Serbia last month.

Bob addressed delegates from across south east Europe at an Electoral Processes Workshop in Belgrade.

The event was organised by the G17 Institute, a prominent Serbian think-tank promoting economic and political liberalisation and democratisation, and the Thessaloniki - Sheffield collaborative South Eastern Europe Research Centre.

Bob has been researching remote electronic voting with Sarah Birch from the Department of Government, and both argue that there are insurmountable political and legal barriers.

These centre on the principle of the secret ballot, which has long been recognised as the cornerstone of democracy.

The Essex view was that remote electronic voting was totally unsuitable for adoption in a country and region of Europe where governments, political groups and families have a long and entrenched tradition of interfering with the casting of ballots.

This view was widely endorsed at the workshop, which included delegates from Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Turkey, as well as officers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Bob said: ‘Views were expressed that in parts of the region the practice of family voting was entrenched to such an extent that women had to be restrained from giving their traditional ballot papers to their eldest sons.’

Bob Watt and Sarah Birch have already been involved in a nationwide research project to investigate the possible introduction of Remote Electronic Voting, using technologies such as the internet and texting, in the UK.

Many governments and electoral organisations are considering these options to address falling turnouts at the polls.

Bob will give a further seminar in Blackpool this month to the Association of Electoral Administrators (AEA), where he will speak on the topic E-voting: is it the answer?

Bob said: ‘I will argue that it is an answer, in that it will make voting easier, but we are asking the wrong question. The right question is: ‘How do we increase real political involvement?’

To read Bob and Sarah’s arguments, see their article ‘Remote Electronic Voting: Free, Fair and Secret?’ in the January 2004 issue of Political Quarterly magazine.

Robotic tour guide for London Aquarium

In the world of science fiction, intelligent robots are invariably all around us, often taking over the world or brainwashing us. In the real world however, robots normally remain in the laboratory, often the rejects of scientific experiments. While on television we watch robots fighting to the 'death' in the popular Robot Wars.

It seems unlikely then that a robot could undertake a mundane, public-oriented job such as tour guide, or does it?

Sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the London Aquarium, Dr Dongbing Gu and PhD student Paul Jones, of the Department of Computer Science, are developing a human-robot interactive system for an autonomous robot, which is to function as a museum tour guide at London Aquarium in London's County Hall.

The research is part of a drive towards introducing robotics into everyday public life. The finished robot will be one of the interactive machines which will teach us how to live side-by-side with robots in the ambitious 'Robot City' project initialised by Professor Huosheng Hu, in October 2002.

The robotic tour guide is being designed to be fully interactive, allowing anyone to have a simple conversation with it, while performing other duties, such as welcoming people into the museum, and showing people various attractions. The robot itself is humanoid in appearance, and stands at 170cm. The head can move horizontally, and so has the ability to look people 'in the eye.' A touch screen monitor is implemented into the chest, allowing for maps or other information to be interactively displayed on screen, rather than being described by speech.

In order to respond realistically, the system will have emotion identifying routines, to determine the emotion of someone speaking. Such a system has the potential to help the robot identify lost crying children, calm down stressed individuals, or provide entertainment for people waiting in queues.

Also in the printed February edition of Wyvern:

• Yale economist to launch CCFEA