Affiliated Faculty, Department of International Affairs
Director, Center for Human Trafficking Research and Outreach (CenHTRO)
Professor, School of Social Work
David Okech is Professor and the founding director of the Center on Human Trafficking Research & Innovation (CenHTRO) and the African Programming and Research Initiative to End Slavery (APRIES). His community-based, interdisciplinary, and international research is on human trafficking – the exploitation of men, women, and children for the purposes of labor or sex. He focuses on designing evidence-based interventions to inform programs and policies that improve the well-being and increase economic empowerment for survivors of trafficking. He serves on the International Steering Group of the Antislavery Knowledge Network at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, among other global anti-trafficking organizations. He was director of the MSW Program (2013-19) and director of Global Engagement (2014-17) at the UGA School of Social Work. Dr. Okech was inducted as a Fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research in 2017.
