Polaris Project

Polaris is a nonprofit non-governmental organization that works to combat and prevent sex and labor trafficking in North America. The organization's 10-year strategy is built around the understanding that human trafficking does not happen in vacuum but rather is the predictable end result of a range of other persistent injustices and inequities in our society and our economy. Knowing that, and leveraging data available from more than a dozen years operating the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline, Polaris is focused on three major areas of work: building power for migrant workers who are at risk of trafficking in U.S. agricultural and other industries; leveraging the reach and expertise of financial systems to disrupt trafficking, creating accountability for perpetrators of violence against people in the sex trade and expanding services and supports to vulnerable people to prevent trafficking before it happens.

Polaris operates the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline, which connects victims and survivors to supports and services around the country and takes tips and calls from people about suspected situations of human trafficking. From that work, the organization has built out one of the largest data sets on human trafficking in the United States. The data set is publicly available for use by researchers through the Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative, launched by Polaris and UN International Organization for Migration. Polaris also advocates for stronger state and federal anti-trafficking legislation, and engages community members in local and national grassroots efforts. Critics of Polaris state that the organization fails to distinguish between consensual sex work and coercion, and that the policies Polaris lobbies for harm sex workers.

History

Polaris - originally Polaris Project - was founded in 2002, by Derek Ellerman and Katherine Chon, who were seniors at Brown University. The organization was named after the North Star, an historical symbol of freedom. Polaris is one of the few organizations working on all forms of trafficking, including supporting survivors who are male, female, transgender people and children, US citizens and foreign nationals and survivors of both labor and sex trafficking.

The National Human Trafficking Hotline

Since 2007, Polaris has operated the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration for Children and Families and through non-governmental sources. The Trafficking Hotline provides survivors of human trafficking with support and a variety of options to get help and stay safe, and shares actionable tips as appropriate. Assistance through the Trafficking Hotline is available 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Victims, survivors and others can contact the Trafficking Hotline through phone text (233733), web form and online chat, in both English and Spanish. All contact with the Trafficking Hotline is confidential. The Trafficking Hotline also maintains a public referral directory organizations around the country that work on and may be able to assist victims, survivors and others wishing to get involved in the anti trafficking movement.

Data and research

Polaris has compiled the largest data set on human trafficking in the United States. The data is gleaned from the Trafficking Hotline. While data from the Trafficking Hotline is the most comprehensive publicly available set on human trafficking in North America, it has significant limitations and should not be taken as a prevalence study. The data available through the Trafficking Hotline only reflects the experience of those who are aware of their rights, and choose to make contact. Therefore, it cannot be used to refer to any particular state as being "the worst" for human trafficking or even having the "highest number of situations of human trafficking." Additionally, data collection is secondary to the mission of the Trafficking Hotline, and questions asked during contact made to the Hotline are limited to what is necessary to know in order to provide the assistance needed.

In 2020, Polaris began work on the National Survivor Study, in order to obtain scientifically valid data. In addition to asking people with lived experience to share their expertise, the project relies on survivors to design the study and analyze the findings.

Critics have raised concerns that the Trafficking Hotline data misrepresents the amount of trafficking happening among sex workers.

Criticism

Polaris Project has been criticized by some sex workers who support full decriminalization of the commercial sex industry including buyers, sellers and managers. Polaris supports partial decriminalization of the sex trades to ensure people in prostitution are not criminalized and can receive services and supports if they choose to do so.

Honors and awards

* 2020 Ohtli Award
*Thomson Reuters Everyday Heroes Award
*2017 Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship
* Google Global Impact Award
* Ashoka Innovators for the Public

References

{{Sex trafficking, state=collapsed

Organizations that combat human trafficking
Human rights organizations based in the United States
Organizations established in 2002
2002 establishments in the United States
Human trafficking in the United States