30,000 sign on for OSU online course
An open-to-anyone online course about human trafficking drew more than 30,000 participants this past fall, an outpouring that heartened — and exhausted — the Ohio State University professor who led the effort.
Jacquelyn Meshelemiah said she has no doubt that the monthlong course helped with awareness and understanding. But communities still need to look deeper, she said.
“I’m so excited that they busted those massage parlors,” said Meshelemiah, referring to raids this week at three businesses in Delaware and Franklin counties. “I know of many more that need to be busted.”
Americans still tend to think of human trafficking as a problem largely confined to developing countries, she said, a view that can cause red flags to be missed locally.
“I would say that if someone walks into an establishment in Columbus, Ohio, and the workers don’t speak any English at all,
See
Page
and it’s a business that serves customers, I would be suspicious,” Meshelemiah said. “That’s highly unusual here.”
She said she often visits businesses, such as nail salons, that investigators cite as risks for labor trafficking.
Immigrants trapped in labor- or sex-trafficking operations are sometimes told they cannot go to law enforcement because systems are corrupt. They have their passports and IDs confiscated and fear deportation.
“They have nowhere to go,” Meshelemiah said. “Their isolation is compounded.”
According to the OSU College of Social Work, the Massive Open Online Course, or MOOC, taught by Meshelemiah in August and September drew thousands of students from 187 countries in a first-of-its-kind global discussion. The free course offered certificates but no academic credit.
Meshelemiah, who has been researching human trafficking since 1996, said online conversations during the course were passionate. Divisions sprang up between “people who identify as sex workers and people who identify themselves as trafficking abolitionists.”
The sex workers “really felt that the abolitionists are very much alarmists because some people do this voluntarily,” Meshelemiah said. “That’s the piece that’s very difficult.”
Sara Friedman, an OSU graduate student, said the experience was eyeopening. Participants were taught about the forms, severity and extent of human trafficking, as well as economic and political factors, laws and rescue programs.
Jacquelyn Meshelemiah’s online course on human trafficking drew thousands of students from 187 countries.
“I came into it without a background,” Friedman said. “It was a subject that I had seen in the paper, as part of movie titles, that sort of thing, and I wanted to learn more.”
She soon found herself amid discussions and debates with participants around the world.
“One woman said, ‘This is how I provide for my family.’ She didn’t see herself as exploited, although she acknowledged that that happens,” Friedman said.
The federal government’s definition for human trafficking says there must be force, fraud or coercion, or involvement of someone younger than 18.
“In terms of adults, if there’s no evidence of force, fraud or coercion, you can call it prostitution,” Meshelemiah said.
About half of the course participants were from North America. “When people realized I was actually in Columbus, Ohio, I got a lot of emails from people saying, ‘ What can I do?’”
Become knowledgeable, Meshelemiah said. Think about purchasing Fair Trade products, observe businesses and workers, and consider the potential situation of women in strip clubs or even at bachelor parties.
“Has it ever occurred to you that the person on the stage might not want to be there?” she asked. “Has it ever occurred to you that while she looks 21, she might only be 16?”