Operations Research and Analytics to Combat Human Trafficking: A Systematic Review of Academic Literature

TL;DR

This systematic review analyzes 142 studies in Operations Research and Analytics focused on combating human trafficking, highlighting current trends, research gaps, and aligning academic efforts with global trafficking demographics.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive classification and analysis of OR and Analytics research related to human trafficking, identifying gaps and proposing future research directions.

Findings

Current methodologies vary widely across studies.

Research often focuses on specific trafficking contexts and regions.

Significant gaps exist in data sources and demographic coverage.

Abstract

Human trafficking is a widespread and compound social, economic, and human rights issue occurring in every region of the world. While there have been an increasing number of anti-human trafficking works from the Operations Research and Analytics domains in recent years, no systematic review of this literature currently exists. We fill this gap by providing a systematic literature review that identifies and classifies the body of Operations Research and Analytics research related to the anti-human trafficking domain, thereby illustrating the collective impact of the field to date. We classify 142 studies to identify current trends in methodologies, theoretical approaches, data sources, trafficking contexts, target regions, victim-survivor demographics, and focus within the well-established 4Ps principles. Using these findings, we discuss the extent to which the current literature aligns with the global demographics of human trafficking and identify existing research gaps to propose an agenda for Operations Research and Analytics researchers.