This webinar discusses the Freedom Fund’s study that investigates the nature of exploitation of minors in Kathmandu’s adult entertainment sector. The speakers explain the purpose and research questions, as well as the processes of data collection and field procedures.
For the study, 600 workers in the adult entertainment sector in Kathmandu Valley were surveyed, and 50 in-depth interviews were conducted. The research found a current population of minors working in Kathmandu Valley of about 1650 with a margin of error plus or minus 23. The current proportion of minors working across the adult entertainment sector as a whole is 17 percent, and the majority of the workers, 62 percent, began working in the sector when they were under 18. While the numbers of minors working in the AES may have declined since past estimates, there are still a significant number of minors working in the sector that is a highly exploitative place for children to work.
The second presentation during the webinar focuses on the methods used for the prevalence estimation and explained respondent-driven sampling (RDS), mark and recapture, and venue-based sampling to determine the population of minors. The presentation concludes with a discussion of the limitations of the study and how these limitations may be minimized in future research efforts.
Presentations are provided by the principal investigator and lead statistician:
Dr. Meredith Dank is a Research Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Her areas of focus include human trafficking, teen dating violence, LGBTQ issues, victimization, and qualitative methods. She served as principal investigator on over a dozen human trafficking studies funded by the Department of Justice, the US Department of State and the Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Dank has conducted research in multiple countries and took part in a White House stakeholder meeting on victim services for survivors.
Dr. Kyle Vincent, Ph.D., is the pioneer in the development and application of Adaptive and Link-Tracing Sampling-based strategies for estimating the size and distribution of networked hard-to-reach populations. Dr. Vincent has provided technical support and consulting services to a multitude of national and international agencies, including the U.S. State Department, International Labour Organisation and the Walk Free Foundation. His research has been published in high-ranking journals such as the Journal of the American Statistical Association and has been recognized in the Journal of Human Trafficking.