The Woozle Effect

What do Winnie-the-Pooh and the worldwide movement to end modern-day slavery have in common? They are both suffering from a not-so-rare, only partially debilitating condition known as the Woozle Effect. Finding the cure might be the key to saving millions of slaves around the world. And of course, one lovable yellow bear.

What is a Woozle? It's a question Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet asked themselves one snowy day when they went out to follow something through the forest, which Piglet thought might be a Woozle. They walked for a long time, and just as Pooh was ready to give up and go have a snack of honey, they came upon two sets of tracks — one small and one large. Piglet and Pooh decide they must be Woozle tracks, and that the Woozle must be traveling with a Wizzle, as they are apt to do. So the duo follow the tracks for awhile, until the two sets of tracks become four! Just how many Woozles and Wizzles there are? The two followed increasingly large numbers of Woozle and Wizzle tracks until Christopher Robin came to point out that this whole time, Pooh and Piglet have been following their own tracks, made in the snow.

Winnie-the-Pooh's experience is a perfect allegory for something happening today in the modern-day slavery movement; when it comes to data and statistics about human trafficking, we're sometimes chasing our own tracks, not knowing quite where they began. In their 2008 report on human trafficking in New York City, Neil Wiener and Nicole Hala coined the term "the Woozle Effect" to refer to the data crisis in understanding human trafficking. In short, the Woozle Effect starts when, in a mad dash to understand an emerging issue, there is a focus on "quick and dirty" fact gathering. This happened early on in the anti-trafficking movement to prove what many people wanted to deny — that slavery still exists. But then another researcher or advocate cites that "quick and dirty" fact, and so on and so forth. Pretty soon, the fact takes on a life of it's own — it's a number everyone knows, but no one can say exactly how it was gotten. It has become Woozled.

A great current example of this are the numbers of trafficking victims "predicted" to be trafficked to the World Cup. These estimates have ranged from 20,000 to 38,000 to 100,000. But no one can trace any of them to a source more credible than a general guess. Logic dictates that there will be some human trafficking around the World Cup, but whether that's 5 victims, 5000 victim, or 50,000 victims is unclear. We need to stop guessing and start counting — not just at the World Cup, but all time, in every country, to get real, Woozle-free data.

But we also need to come to terms with some realities. For one, we will never know exactly how many human trafficking victims there are in the world, just like we'll never know the exact number of heroine users or illegal gun sellers. These are hidden crimes. And the good news is, we don't need an exact number to fight human trafficking. But we do need to know the general prevalence. Because there is a huge difference between 5 victims and 50,000. Any number is too many, but a better estimate will help us better address the real problem.

Data collection has gotten much better over the past decade. But if we're really serious about ending human trafficking, we've got to stop the Woozle Effect and learn to gather better data. Otherwise, we'll end up just like poor old Pooh, chasing our own tracks while the Woozles and Wizzles of the world wander freely, all but unknown to us.

Photo credit: jenny downing