Anti-Trafficking Policy Compliance with International Norms in Estonia and the Former Soviet Space

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Estonia, European Union member and leader developmentally among the countries that emerged from the former Soviet space, dramatically underperforms compared to these countries when it comes to anti-human trafficking policy compliance with international norms. Why is this? Using ordinary least squares regression and standard deviation, I demonstrate that Estonia has a poor anti-human trafficking policy compliance record in part because of discrimination against its sizeable Russian minority population. This has implications for security in the region, and the effect of discrimination based on ethnic background on anti-human trafficking policy compliance with international norms should be further researched on a universal basis.