Gaps in Human Trafficking Curriculum on University Campuses

Background and Purpose: Over the years, it has become clear that higher education institutions are responsible for educating and advancing the well-being of their community and students. Therefore, it is increasingly essential for colleges and universities to learn not only how to identify and respond to the suspicion of trafficking on their campuses and support victims on campus, but to also provide appropriate curriculum in different educational disciplines as well. This study includes 2 objectives: (1) explore teaching, research, and community engagement to increase awareness and prevention and (2) identify the types of curricula being utilized, their documented effectiveness, and where there are gaps and opportunities for improvement. The study question is “what are the current gaps in preexisting curricula on United States university campuses to address human trafficking needs, teaching, and prevention?”

Methods: The study performed a systematic review of the available literature, the databases in the institution were searched for related search terms to uncover all peer-reviewed, English-speaking articles in the last ten years that addressed prevention and educational curriculum being used on university campuses in the United States.

Results: The majority of teaching and prevention resources and curricula that have been created for students are in the areas of healthcare, education, and business. Each academic discipline seeks to address its unique opportunities to fight human trafficking in its professional roles. Medical training on human trafficking has the highest representation in the research, with interprofessional human trafficking training reported to be a preferred method of educating professionals. While many university campuses appear to try to address human trafficking in some way, the absence of curriculum options was surprising. In the literature reviewed, no standardized curriculums were identified in any field of study or discipline, and no universities seemed to have human trafficking education integrated into required learning for the entire student population. In addition, some of the disciplines that have the potential to need to understand human trafficking the most appear to be missing from the literature.

Conclusions and Implications: Further research should be conducted to determine the future of human trafficking curricula in higher education settings. First, it would be important to try to determine the best ways to teach students and the community to be better equipped to combat the growing problem of human trafficking in each education discipline. Secondly, it would be helpful to develop consistent, standardized content and delivery regardless of institution. Third, additional research could be done to determine which disciplines are more impacted by trafficking education and whether it would be appropriate to require human trafficking education for all students. Finally, further research should be done to determine the best curriculum delivery methods that yield the highest effectiveness for universities in the United States.