Research Institute for Social Sciences

I completed my dual honours LLB in Law and Criminology in 2000 at Keele University, gaining a 2:1, and my MA in Criminology in 2001, again at Keele and gaining a distinction.

I then spent 2 years working for a charity addressing homelessness, after which I studied for a Diploma in Legal Practice at the Bar and was graded very competent.

From 2005 to 2009, I worked for Manchester Women’s Aid providing advice and support to women fleeing domestic violence.

I have been a full-time PhD student since September 2009; my research project is funded by the ESRC. In 2012, I was awarded an ESRC funded internship with the charity Unchosen, who work to raise awareness of human trafficking.

In 2012, I taught a module on sex trafficking for those completing the Advanced Practitioner MA course on Abuse Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University.

• How does the voluntary sector in the UK respond to trafficked women?

• How are service provider and advocacy roles defined and experienced, both organisationally and by individual staff members?
• What are the implications of these definitions and experiences for service and policy development in the human trafficking field?
• What contribution can a study of service provision in the trafficking arena make to our understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the voluntary sector in the 21st century?

During my fieldwork, I gathered data using ethnographic participant observation and completed 20 in-depth narrative interviews, with organisations working in the anti-trafficking field, either as activists or service providers. I seek to explore how trafficking, and the trafficked person, is defined and constructed by the voluntary sector, and how this in turn might affect the everyday work done, and therefore the service provided. Further, this research will highlight the points at which the voluntary sector, the state, the private sector and academia, intersect within the framework of human trafficking, the impact this has in terms of the work done by and the workings of the anti-trafficking sub-sector, and the implications this may have for voluntary sector literature as a whole.