Protecting individuals at risk of human trafficking

The Sexual Trafficking Identification Matrix (STIM) tool is assisting law enforcement, charities, and online platforms in their efforts to identify and protect potential victims of sexual exploitation and human trafficking.

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The use of adult service websites (ASW) by criminal networks is a growing challenge in the fight against human trafficking. While some argue that these platforms offer a safer alternative to street-based work for consenting adults, there is growing evidence that traffickers are using them to advertise the forced sexual services of their victims. This allows them to reach a larger customer base and operate with less risk of being caught by law enforcement.

In response, police practitioners are proactively investigating ASWs to identify suspect profiles, but a major obstacle is distinguishing between profiles created by non-trafficked adults and those posted by traffickers, as it's difficult to tell a legitimate profile from a false one.

Responding directly to this challenge, a team led by Dr Xavier L'Hoiry, Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Social Policy at the University of Sheffield, alongside academic colleagues Dr Alessandro Moretti (University of Copenhagen) and Professor Georgios Antonopoulos (Northumbria University) developed the Sexual Trafficking Identification Matrix (STIM).

“My area of expertise is in organised crime and specifically in human trafficking and sexual exploitation. As part of this research, we've developed a bespoke analytical tool which is called the STIM. The STIM is designed to be used by practitioners and it helps them to risk assess adverts on adult service websites. We've been working with a series of partners nationally and internationally on this work, in partnership with an academic project team, as well as police practitioners, third sector organisations and a series of other partners” explains Dr L'Hoiry.

Development of the STIM

Alongside South Yorkshire police, Dr L’Hoiry launched the research project in 2020 with an aim of developing a bespoke tool of analysis enabling police practitioners to more effectively identify high-risk profiles posted on ASWs. The project, which resulted in the development of the STIM, began by gathering existing knowledge on human traffickers’ use of ASW profiles. The second stage of the study involved conducting 26 semi-structured interviews with human trafficking and sexual exploitation experts to identify common risk markers.

The STIM helps practitioners evaluate profiles by looking for these specific indicators. The tool's design is based on the finding that traffickers often use repetitive and distinct patterns. This allows police to more effectively assess profiles and identify those that pose a high risk of being used for exploitation by analysing elements like photographs and language used. The subsequent phases of the project were then dedicated to testing and refining the tool.

"The kind of thing that the STIM is looking at is a series of risk factors across a number of categories. But it might be things like the nature of the photographs, the use of language, the details that are in the advert and the kind of services offered in the advert. At the end of that assessment, the STIM will produce the practitioner a risk rating and they can then determine whether the advert is high, medium or low priority. This rating then helps the practitioner to dedicate additional resources if they have to do further investigations", explains Dr L'Hoiry.

The impact on police forces and NGOs

The STIM has now been adopted by 16 police forces and two non-governmental organisation’s (NGOs) in the UK, four police forces abroad and the Danish Centre Against Human Trafficking in Denmark. This demonstrates both the geographical reach of the STIM but also the breadth of its adoption by different types of organisations.

At organisations like Thames Valley Police, the STIM is already proving to be a vital tool for helping practitioners proactively identify individuals at the greatest risk of exploitation.

One of the main challenges we had was that we were reliant on victims coming forward, which was unfortunately very rare. So the STIM has been really beneficial for us. It has helped us identify those at greatest risk and set timeframes on how quickly we action those.
Ben Henley
Detective Chief Inspector in Thames Valley Police

“We’ve utilised the STIM to score over 128 online adverts, and this has resulted in 40 visits being conducted at locations, with dozens of individuals safeguarded. We currently have five live criminal investigations and there have been multiple arrests as a result of utilising the STIM. Other forces have made contact with me and I've provided briefings to them so they can replicate our model. It has also been identified as national best practice and as a result, other forces have been encouraged to follow our utilisation of the STIM” adds Ben Henley, Detective Chief Inspector in Thames Valley Police.

The STIM has also been formally adopted by the NGO Changing Lives in the UK and the Danish Centre Against Human Trafficking (DCAHT) in Denmark. Changing Lives adopted the STIM in 2021 as part of their ‘net reach’ activities during which safeguarding staff use the STIM to assess potential instances of exploitation and/or vulnerability on ASWs. The STIM supports these assessments by helping staff to identify high risk profiles and gathering key data to support a referral to police forces.

The DCAHT has also adopted the STIM and, working in collaboration with Dr L'Hoiry and colleagues, has developed a semi-automated version of this matrix designed to suit the specific setting of Denmark and its human trafficking landscapes.

“The Danish Centre against Human Trafficking is a government body, and is the focal point for the efforts against human trafficking in Denmark. We do identification of victims and we do support victims of human trafficking, coordinating the efforts with other actors, such as NGOs and the political level. So we wanted to help NGOs who do outreach work be more efficient in the work that they do because right now the NGOs look through ads manually every day - thousands of ads basically that are updated every day. So it was very timely for us to meet the colleagues from the University of Sheffield because they had developed this tool to do exactly what we wanted to do. So indicators that were research-based and not only kind of gut feelings about what is potential human trafficking” explains Matilde Skov Damstrom, The Danish Centre against Human Trafficking.

Next steps

Dr L'Hoiry is continuing to work with police and other stakeholders to update and improve the STIM on an ongoing basis, ensuring a continuous exchange of knowledge between the academic team and partners. He’s also doing scoping work with a number of police forces and other organisations to get more practitioners to adopt the STIM in the future with a view towards every police force in the country using the STIM and other stakeholders (such as third sector organisations). To date, Dr L'Hoiry and colleagues have delivered over 30 training sessions, both online and in-person, for more than 100 police representatives.