91ÑÇÉ«

November 13, 2026

1:00-2:00pm (ET/Toronto)

This is a hybrid event

In person: 626 Kaneff Tower, 91ÑÇÉ«, Keele Campus

Zoom:

Guest Speaker: Kiril Sharapov, Chair in Forced Migration, Edinburgh Napier University 

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine prompted widespread warnings of mass trafficking, abuse and exploitation among people fleeing the war. Yet research across Poland, Romania, Moldova and Spain suggests that trafficking did not occur on the scale anticipated. This finding needs to be read alongside evidence of exploitation and continuing economic insecurity, as well as gaps in how harm is recorded and recognised. The gap between predictions and available evidence nevertheless raises questions about what helped protect people and how we understand trafficking prevention.

Drawing on research undertaken for the International Organization for Migration, this talk argues that explanations focused on awareness-raising and specialist anti-trafficking interventions give insufficient attention to access to rights. Safe mobility, lawful residence, employment, housing, healthcare and social support can reduce dependence on exploitative arrangements and give people greater scope to refuse or leave them. These protections depend on people being able to exercise their rights in practice.

The findings challenge the treatment of migrant and refugee vulnerability as a natural consequence of displacement or an inherent characteristic of particular populations. Laws, policies and institutions can produce vulnerability, but they can also reduce it when there is political will. This raises a further question: why are governments willing to extend protection to some displaced populations while withholding it from others, and what sustains or erodes that willingness over time?

The talk considers what these findings mean for contemporary anti-trafficking models. It asks whether an industry concerned with sustaining its own institutions and funding can leave the causes of exploitation unchallenged, while practices of border enforcement, conditional assistance and restrictive victim identification can make people more vulnerable. What would change if success were judged by people’s ability to avoid and leave exploitation, rather than principally by awareness campaigns, victim identification and criminal justice outcomes?

Kiril Sharapov is Professor in the School of Applied Sciences at Edinburgh Napier University. A sociologist of forced migration, he researches how laws, policies and institutions produce or reduce vulnerability to exploitation. His work examines human trafficking, anti-trafficking policy and the politics of protection, including research for the International Organization for Migration on the Ukrainian refugee response in Poland, Romania, Moldova and Spain. He serves on the editorial board of Anti-Trafficking Review and has guest-edited issues on public perceptions of trafficking and anti-trafficking funding.

Kiril leads the ESRC-funded project Caring to Survive: Disability and Everyday Acts of Care during the War in Ukraine (2026–2029), building on his earlier research on disability, displacement and COVID-19 in Ukraine. His wider work includes climate displacement in Mongolia, migrant labour and the regulation of sex work. He is Vice President of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration, founder and convenor of Edinburgh Napier’s Migration and Mobilities Research Network, and Co-Convenor of the British Sociological Association’s Sociology of Rights Study Group.