Siân Thomas
Siân is a lecturer, social researcher and practitioner with a background in human rights and social work. She first became interested in trafficking as a form of modern slavery while studying for her Master’s degree in Human Rights in 2005, and was part of the initial project team at The Salvation Army when they first took over the national contract for supporting adult victims of trafficking in 2011.
She has worked with migration and gender issues in the UK and Thailand, working with people with a diverse range of experiences, including refugees and asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, sex workers, survivors of torture, and women and men who have experienced domestic abuse.
She is also a registered social worker and has experience of statutory work with children and families in the West Midlands. She currently works for the University of Birmingham as a lecturer on qualifying social work programmes, with a particular focus on gender-based violence, migration and child protection.
She is a member of the Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS), and her research and evaluation work has included projects on supporting women in the asylum process, gender-based violence in the context of displacement, and preventative approaches to asylum support.