LESSONS LEARNED FROM MODERN SLAVERY: ADDRESSING SHARED CHALLENGES IN MEASUREMENT FOR STATELESSNESS RESEARCHERS DAVINA P DURGANA * TABLE OF CONTENTS I II III IV V Importance of Measurement in Modern Slavery .................................................. 141 Statelessness in the Americas and the Risk of Exploitation and Modern Slavery..................................................................................................... 142 A De Jure Statelessness of Dominicans of Haitian-Descent and Risk of Exploitation and Modern Slavery ............................................................. 142 B De Facto Statelessness of Venezuelan Migrants and Their Children and Risk of Exploitation and Modern Slavery .......................... 143 Difficulties in Measurement Presented by Statelessness and Modern Slavery..... 144 A Voluntary Global Database Reporting and Definitional Challenges ........ 144 B Self-Identification among Target Research Populations .......................... 145 C Potential Incentives of Governments to Undercount or Not Count These Populations .......................................................................... 146 D Ethical Concerns in Researching These Populations................................ 146 Potential Solutions and Lessons Learned ............................................................. 146 A Promising Method 1: Survey-Based Research ......................................... 146 B Promising Method 2: Multiple Systems Estimation ................................. 147 Conclusions........................................................................................................... 147 I IMPORTANCE OF MEASUREMENT IN MODERN SLAVERY Modern slavery and statelessness research efforts present an opportunity for a collaborative and shared research agenda. This discussion focuses on the importance of measurement for both modern slavery and statelessness research, a proposed shared research agenda for statelessness and modern slavery in the Americas, and challenges statelessness researchers face that can be addressed by best practices from the modern slavery field. This discussion is informed by the work of Walk Free — made possible by the Minderoo Foundation — a leader in the modern slavery space and producer of the Global Slavery Index (‘GSI’). 1 The GSI is the world’s most comprehensive study on the prevalence of modern slavery and enables us to refine our thinking on how to better respond to this crime, and * 1 Dr Durgana is Senior Statistician at the Walk Free initiative of the Minderoo Foundation with over a decade of experience in the modern slavery field. She is Vice Chair of Statistics without Borders, an American Statistical Association Statistical Advocate of the Year, a Forbes Under 30 Board Member and an AAAS If/Then Ambassador. Dr Durgana also holds faculty membership at Oxford University. ‘Walk Free’, Minderoo Foundation (Web Page, 2020) <https://www.minderoo.org/walkfree/>.