UP-KAT · Understanding Public Knowledge and Attitudes towards Trafficking in Human Beings: A Cross-National Study

The overall aim of this 24-month project is to research, evaluate, and disseminate a broader understand-ing of how Trafficking in Human Beings (THB) is understood by the general public in countries of the en-larged EU and its neighbour states. The project will assess the influence of socio-economic, demograph-ic and attitudinal factors on public knowledge and understanding of THB by situating the analysis within socio-economic and political contexts of the countries of origin, transit and destination for THB. The find-ings will aid in the development of anti-trafficking policies and targeted public awareness campaigns.Theoretically, this research will contribute to ongoing scholarly debates on how citizens can influence public policies and how public knowledge is embedded in complex socio-political processes. This will be achieved by exploring public understanding of THB as a function of individual socio-economic and de-mographic attributes, attitudes towards a broad range of issues surrounding THB (immigration, gender inequality, prostitution, consumption), and discursive construction of national policies on immigration, gender equality and social justice. The project will address the existing deficit of comparative empirical data in the field by producing three rich cross-national data sets on public understanding of THB. Data will be collected using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, including omnibus-powered face-to-face surveys of nationally representative samples of adults in Ukraine, Hungary and the UK, fo-cus groups and qualitative semi-structured interviews. In addition to the academic significance of re-search outcomes, the project will also offer and promote a set of context-specific recommendations on how to develop targeted campaigns and policies to inform public awareness of trafficking and its links to the factors of supply and demand.""