Anni Lietonen
“The criminal justice system is rather focused on the perpetrator, and therefore research that uncovers the experiences of the victims is extremely important. I also feel it is not enough to just collect data and analyse it; investing time and expertise to science communication is equally important. Research findings should be shared not only with scientists and policy makers but also with other relevant stakeholders and the general public. Knowledge is best when shared!"
Anni Lietonen (M.Soc.Sc) works as a researcher at HEUNI, where her current focus is on trafficking in human beings, violence against women, victimization surveys and analysis of crime data statistics. Ms Lietonen has studied sociology and criminology in the United Kingdom (BA, University of Sunderland), during which she spent one year in Ireland as an Erasmus student. She received her Master’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Helsinki. She has also a certificate for science communication from the Helsinki based Skolar-training program.
Anni’s methodological expertise includes both quantitative and qualitative methods. She has quantitative experience in analyzing e.g. the UNDOC crime data and has been involved in developing and analyzing European wide surveys, e.g. the FRA violence against women survey (2014). Through her participation in several research projects through various funding programmes, Anni has extensive experience in the application and execution of EU-wide multinational research projects. In addition to the already mentioned areas of expertise, Anni has also been involved in projects related to cybercrime, trust in justice, costs of violence and corporate social responsibility. The most recent large scale efforts have been linked to the project HESTIA which explored the concept of exploitative sham marriages and the links between human trafficking and sham marriages in Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia.
Anni has participated in United Nations expert meetings on e.g. gender-related killing of women and girls, as well as in the work of the European Sourcebook group collecting and validating data for European countries. Through HEUNI’s commitment she is currently part of a consortium that has signed a Framework Contract with the DG Justice for the purpose of delivering assistance through service requests. She is also takin part in the Eurostat Task Force on the development of a survey and gender-based violence.
