Speakers

Alesia Adams
Alesia Adams is Youth Development and Sexual Trafficking Prevention Coordinator/Trainer for the Salvation Army in Atlanta, Georgia. Adams is the former Director and Founder of the Center to End Adolescent Sexual Exploitation (CEASE) in Atlanta, a project of the Juvenile Justice Fund of Fulton County. Originally working as a Volunteer Coordinator for the Court Appointed Special Advocates Program (CASA), Adams was particularly troubled by the plight of underage girls who were brought in on prostitution charges and treated as criminals, rather than victims, of sexual exploitation; this experience led to the formation of CEASE. Adams was instrumental in establishing the first therapeutic safe house in the southeastern United States, passing legislation that made pimping and pandering of a minor a felony and the arrest and conviction of 11 notorious child pimps under the federal RICO Act.
Alesia Adams - Documents
Elizabeth Arnold
Dr. Elizabeth Arnold is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Her work focuses on the prevention of high-risk behavior through community-based methods of intervention, including programs for women engaged in prostitution, men who solicit prostitutes, and adolescent runaways. She is the current recipient of a career development award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Rosilyne Borland
Rosilyne Borland works on issues related to the health of migrant and mobile populations in Central America as an Associate Expert at the Regional Office for Central America and Mexico of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). As the lead on health and migration for the region, Rosilyne works closely with governmental and non-governmental partners on issues related to the health of migrants and host communities, including access to health services and information, health assistance to vulnerable migrants (such as victims of trafficking and unaccompanied minors), and policy and program development. Previously, Rosilyne worked on counter-trafficking and health issues at the IOM Regional Office for North America and the Caribbean. Rosilyne also spent several years as a communications and research consultant with the international medical non-governmental organization Médecins Sans Frontières, reporting on emergency health programs around the world.
Rosilyne Borland - Documents
Vednita Carter
Vednita Carter is the co-founder and executive director of Breaking Free in Minneapolis, MN. Breaking Free is a non-profit organization working to assist African-American victims of the sexual exploitation, who are disproportionately represented among prostituted individuals. Carter has pioneered an Afro-centric approach to victim's services, reaching out to women as "sisters helping sisters."
Derek Ellerman
Derek Ellerman is the co-founder and co-executive director of the Polaris Project in Washington, D.C. The Polaris Project is an organization based in the US and Japan committed to combating human trafficking, strengthening the anti-trafficking movement, and providing survivor support. Recognized as an expert on US-based sex trafficking networks, Ellerman specializes in criminal network operations, victim identification, law enforcement collaboration, and trafficking policy. He has conducted workshops for the U.S. State Department, testified before the U.S. Congress, and worked directly with survivors of trafficking.
Derek Ellerman - Documents
Annalisa Enrile
Annalisa Enrile, a Filipina-American, is the current chair of Gabriela Network (GABNet). GABNet is a US-Philippine women's solidarity organization. The organization helps Filipinas empower themselves, functions as a training ground for women's leadership, and articulates the women's point of view. Its main campaign focuses have been on sex trafficking, anti-militarization and labor issues. Enrile has been involved in GABNet for over ten years. She is also a professor at the University of Southern California School of Social Work.
Annalisa Enrile - Documents
Melissa Farley
Melissa Farley, PhD, spent the past decade conducting international research on prostitution, with a focus on the psychological harms of prostitution and trafficking. In 2003, she edited the book Prostitution, Trafficking & Traumatic Stress with contributions from 30 authors. Farley was contributing author to three chapters, "Dissociation among Women in Prostitution," "Prostitution and Trafficking in 9 Countries: Update on Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder," and "Prostitution and Trafficking of Women and Children from Mexico to the United States." Dr. Farley has practiced as a clinical and research psychologist for 40 years and has published 24 peer-reviewed articles. In her work, she has consistently addressed the connections between prostitution, racism, poverty and also the connections between domestic and international trafficking. She constructed and manages the Prostitution Research & Education website, www.prostitutionresearch.com, which provides information about trafficking and prostitution, including a list of agencies offering services to women who have been in prostitution, and a blog, "Traffick Jamming." Melissa Farley has embarked on a second decade of cross-cultural research-studying men's demand for prostituted women.
Melissa Farley - Documents
Catherine Fogel
Catherine Fogel is a Professor and MSN Coordinator, Women's Health Care Nurse Practitioner at UNC- Chapel Hill. Catherine Fogel has a master's degree in nursing and public health and a PhD in Sociology with a minor in women's studies. Her scholarship is in the areas of health disparities and health promotion/health protection of vulnerable women including incarcerated women. In addition, she focuses on the prevention of STDs/HIV in women and the experiences of women living with HIV.
Catherine Fogel - Documents
Kenneth Franzblau
Kenneth Franzblau works with Equality Now, an international human rights organization. His current work, which focuses on sex tourism, involves finding sex tour companies and gathering information that can be provided to law enforcement and administrative agencies, NGOs and the media. Franzblau was previously Equality Now's liaison to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. He has written several op-ed pieces and articles concerning sex tourism and trafficking.
Norma Hotaling
Norma Hotaling is the Executive Director of Standing Against Global Exploitation, (SAGE). SAGE is one of the nation's first organizations providing effective trauma, mental health and substance abuse services for survivors of prostitution, exploitation, and trafficking, which includes a residential service for sexually exploited girls ages 11-17. Over the last nine years SAGE has enabled over 1200 women, girls, men and transgenders to leave prostitution and reclaim their lives.
Norma Hotaling - Documents
Donna Hughes
Donna M. Hughes is a Professor and holds the Eleanor M. and Oscar M. Carlson Endowed Chair in Women's Studies at the University of Rhode Island. She is one of the leading international researchers on trafficking of women and children. She has completed research on the trafficking of women and girls for prostitution in the United States, Russia, Ukraine, and Korea. One of her best known papers that is widely distributed and translated is "The Natasha Trade: The Transnational Shadow Market of Trafficking in Women." She was a research consultant to the Council of Europe on the use of new information technologies in the trafficking in women and children for sexual exploitation. She has worked with pro-democracy activists to collect information on trafficking and prostitution of women in Iran and the connection between Islamic fundamentalism and sexual exploitation. She is frequently interviewed by media on topics related to trafficking. She has testified before the US House International Relations Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Moscow Duma, and the Czech Parliament.
Donna Hughes - Documents
Rodger Hunter-Hall
As a Senior Analyst with the Trafficking in Persons Program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Rodger Hunter-Hall assists in implementing the agency's task of helping human trafficking victims become eligible to receive benefits and services, which are critical to helping victims regain their dignity and become self-sufficient in the United States. Mr. Hunter-Hall's central responsibility involves support for the HHS public awareness campaign, Rescue & Restore Victims of Human Trafficking. The intent of the Rescue & Restore campaign is to increase the number of identified trafficking victims and to help those victims receive the services and support they need to rebuild their lives in the U.S.
Kevin Kendrick
Kevin Kendrick is the Special Agent in Charge of North Carolina operations of the FBI and a 25-year veteran of the FBI. Prior to assuming charge of North Carolina operations, he was Section Chief in the Administrative Services Division at FBI Headquarter. From 1992 to 1994, he supervised white-collar crimes in a 15-state region from Washington D.C. and in 1994 became Assistant Special Agent in Charge in the Oakland County Resident Agency in Michigan.
Laura Lederer
Laura Lederer currently serves as Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons to Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs. She is Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown Law Center where she teaches a course on International Trafficking of Persons. In 1997 she received the Gustavus Meyers Center for Study of Human Rights Annual Award for Outstanding Work on Human Rights for her work on harmful speech issues. She founded and directed The Protection Project at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1997. At the invitation of then Dean Paul Wolfowitz, The Project moved to Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in 2000. She is the editor of Take Back the Night, published in 1980 by William and Morrow (hardcover) and Bantam Books (paperback), and The Price We Pay: The Case Against Racist Speech, Hate Propaganda, and Pornography, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1995, and the author of numerous articles on trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of women and children.
Laura Lederer - Documents
Dorchen Leidholdt
Dorchen Leidholdt is the Director of the Center for Battered Women's Legal Services at Sanctuary for Families in New York City. Ms. Leidholdt also serves as Co-Executive Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), an umbrella of grassroots organizations around the world which she helped found in 1988. Ms. Leidholdt's writing on sex trafficking include CATW position papers to the UN Special Seminar on Trafficking.
Dorchen Leidholdt - Documents
David Munday
Major David Munday currently serves as Director of Special Operations for the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, with responsibility for aviation, criminal interdiction, motor units, collision reconstruction, special events, and response to unusual occurrences. He is a certified assessor and team leader for the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. He also serves on R.I.P.P.L.E., North Carolina Department of Justice's Task Force on Human Trafficking.
David Munday - Documents
Michelle Old
Michelle Old is a Certified Social Worker. She worked for NCCASA for several years, traveling across the state providing technical assistance to local rape crisis centers. She is currently leading a statewide effort to focus attention on the sex industry including pornography, prostitution, and has created and co-leads the task force, R.I.P.P.L.E., an interagency group dedicated to ending human trafficking in North Carolina.
Will Polk
William Polk co-leads the task force, R.I.P.P.L.E., an interagency group dedicated to ending human trafficking in North Carolina. He is the director of the Victims and Citizens Services Section of the Attorney General's Office. Mr. Polk is a native of Harrisburg, NC, and received a BA in Political Science/Criminal Justice Concentration from North Carolina State University in 1996, and his JD from NC Central University School of Law, in 1999. He is admitted to the NC Bar and US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Before joining the Attorney General's Office, Mr. Polk's previous experiences include working for the Office of the Governor as a policy analyst. Currently, he is the chair of the Workplace Committee of the Council for Women/Domestic Violence Commission. He is the Attorney General's Designee to the Council for Women/Domestic Violence Commission. He has served on the NC Child-Well Being and Domestic Violence Task Force. He has been recognized for his legislative efforts, by being awarded the Legislative Advocacy award by the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Larry Sachs
Larry Sachs works for the Chicago Police Department in their partnership with state, federal agencies and non-governmental organizations, such as the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights, on the Chicago Human Trafficking Task Force. He also serves on the steering committee for the Illinois Rescue and Restore Campaign.
Larry Sachs - Documents
David Sobczyk
Commander David Sobczyk is a 25-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department. He is currently the Commander of the Chicago Police Department's Vice Control Section and co-chairperson of the Chicago Regional Human Trafficking Task Force (CTTF). The Task Force is an equal partnership between multiple law enforcement agencies and social service providers. Commander Sobczyk's primary role is to coordinate city, county, state and federal law enforcement efforts in addressing human trafficking criminal cases and facilitating victim rescue referrals.
Elissa Steglich
Elissa Steglich is the Managing Attorney at the Midwest Immigrant & Human Rights Center in Chicago, Illinois where she provides direct representation to victims of human trafficking and asylum-seekers in addition to supervising MIHRC's trafficking, pro bono asylum, and unaccompanied immigrant children projects. Ms. Steglich is co-editor of In Modern Bondage: Sex Trafficking in the Americas (Transnational 2003).
Marisa Ugarte
Marisa Ugarte, the Executive Director of the Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition of San Diego California, has more than 20 years of experience in advocacy for exploited children and in assisting children and high-risk youth. She spent the past seven years creating organization programs for Tijuana, Mexico, and in the County of San Diego. She created the Binational Crisis Line in Tijuana, as well as the Domestic Violence Crisis Center in DIF. Ms. Ugarte has convened four anti-trafficking conferences, and is an active speaker at similar conferences throughout the US and Central America. Ms. Ugarte taught a masters-degree-level module of Crisis Intervention at the University of Xochicalco, Mexico. An alumnus of San Francisco College for Women/USD and Dunbarton University, Washington, DC, she holds an MA in Social Work. Marisa Ugarte received the National Conflict Resolution Center Peacemaker Award in March of 2005.
Marisa Ugarte - Documents