Ecumenical Conference on Human Trafficking
Multiple Perspectives to Addressing this Complex Issue
Sponsored by National
Council of Churches – Justice for Women Working Group & United Methodist
Women’s Division United Methodist Seminar Program on National and
International Affairs
Ecumenical Conference on Human Trafficking
Biographical Information
Presenters on Monday Afternoon – September 28, 2008
Dr. Mary Streufert is passionate about God, the church, women, theology, and gender justice. She completed her Ph.D. in theology at Claremont Graduate University with a focus on contemporary Lutheran christology. She was awarded a prestigious Lilly Fellowship in Humanities and Theology at Valparaiso University, where she taught and wrote in a variety of topics, including atonement theory, christology, systematic theology, and global feminist theology. Mary has a particular interest in and commitment to the ways in which theology matters in people’s everyday lives. She is a member of the ELCA, the American Academy of Religion, and Lutheran Women in Theological and Religious Studies. Mary and her spouse have three young sons.
Virginia Nesmith has served as Executive Director of the National Farm Worker Ministry (NFWM) since 1998. NFWM is an interfaith organization whose purpose is to support farm workers as they organize for empowerment and justice. NFWM works nationally and on the local level in North Carolina, Florida, California and Oregon. Virginia graduated from Webster University in 1976 with a degree in Peace and Conflict Studies and later studied in the Master of Divinity Program at Eden United Church of Christ Seminary. She began her work with National Farm Worker Ministry in Florida in 1976, (where she first encountered indentured servitude in farm labor.) She has also served as Director of the Lentz Peace Research Lab and the St. Louis Economic Conversion Project, as the St. Louis Public Action Manager for the United Farm Workers and developed and ran an adult education program on Block Island, Rhode Island. She serves on the Board of Directors of Farmworker Justice and Agricultural Missions and is a member of the National Council of Churches Justice and Advocacy Commission. She is a native of St. Louis, MO where she currently resides.
Helene Hayes, RGS, PhD earned her PhD in Social Policy Analysis from the Boston College School of Social Work in 1993 and holds a Masters Degree in Clinical Social Work from Fordham University. Helene has taught Social Policy Analysis and the Social Welfare System at Boston College and Boston University Schools of Social Work. She is a Sister of the Good Shepherd, an international, Roman Catholic, Religious Community of women located on five continents and sixty seven different countries. Currently she is engaged in research on the global phenomenon of trafficking in women. Helene has traveled to Southeast Asia, Europe and parts of the United States and Saipan to interview sixty five trafficked women and is currently engaged in a country-by-country, in-depth analysis of her data. Helene’s prior research on undocumented Haitian, Irish and Salvadoran immigrants in the Boston area was published in 2001 by Praeger Books; U.S. Immigration Policy and the Undocumented: Ambivalent Laws, Furtive Lives.
Rani Hong combines her nationally recognized business skills with her passion to effect change for exploited women and children. She has contributed to the passage of precedent setting laws in Washington State, making it a national leader for addressing the crime of human trafficking as well as advising U.S. Congress and other parliaments on the issues of human trafficking. Rani has participated as a United States American Embassy speaker for the Department of State domestically and abroad to lobby for human trafficking reform. She and her husband, Trong Hong, founded the Tronie Foundation, a non‐profit organization promoting human trafficking education, policy change, and restoration for trafficking survivors. Rani's story has appeared in local, national, and international media, including on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” where she shared her plight as a child slavery survivor in India. Rani has shared her story at numerous speaking panels, trainings, churches, evening events and Press conferences. In addition to being the spokesperson for The Tronie Foundation, Rani works with journalists in print, radio, and broadcast to be a voice for those enslaved. For the past 10 years, Rani has enjoyed sharing her story and working directly with over 50 survivors of human trafficking in 6 different countries.
Presenters on Tuesday Morning – September 30, 2008
As president, Sonia Ossorio led National Organization for Women – NYC’s year-long campaign to repeal the statute of limitations on rape. A large-scale public education campaign and media campaign were key components to this hard-fought victory for women. Ms. Ossorio crisscrossed the state meeting with legislators, local district attorneys and sexual assault service providers. She garnered support by talking about the devastating effect this outdated law has had on women, families, and society. Overwhelmingly, the public was not aware of the ticking clock rape survivors faced. That outrage translated into action. “Before the law was passed there was no statute of limitations for arson but a five year statute for rape, so if your apartment building was set ablaze in 1980 and the arsonist was found in 2000, he could be prosecuted but if you were raped in that building that same night, you only had until 1985 to find and punish the rapist.” At the end of the legislative session the Senate and the Assembly passed a bill eliminating the statute of limitations for rape. In June of 2006, led by Ms. Ossorio NOW-NYC launched its campaign Ending the Business of Human Trafficking in New York City by raising community awareness of human trafficking throughout New York State; advocating on behalf of victims by lobbying legislation; tracking traffickers and educating local businesses about their role in this illegal industry in an effort to break the cycle of that makes New York such a hospitable place to do business. After a year of rallies, public forums, meetings with legislators, law enforcement and Governor Spitzer’s new team, the New York Legislature passed a anti-trafficking law in the 2007 legislative session. “There are few states that have as compelling and immediate need for tough anti-trafficking laws. It is happening throughout our community, in our neighborhoods,” Ossorio said. “New York is no longer a laggard. With the leadership of the new Governor, and agreements with the Senate and Assembly, New York can now begin to work to be a leader is this global fight to end this misery of modern-day slavery.” The next phase in NOW-NYC’s campaign against human trafficking focused on ending newspapers and magazines’ reliance on advertisement revenue from illegal massage parlors and brothels. NOW-NYC is asking local publications to stop doing business with the organized commercial sex industry by signing an anti-trafficking pledge Trafficking Free, NYC! So far 15 local publications have agreed to stop taking sex ads, included New York Magazine. In addition to successful campaigns, Ms. Ossorio has helped the chapter return to solvency by aggressively improving fundraising efforts. She has also initiated a project to create personnel policies and volunteer training manuals for a better run operation. First elected President of NOW-NYC in January of 2005, Ms. Ossorio joined the chapter in 1999 and has served on the board of directors in various positions over the past seven years. A former journalist, she as written extensively on women entrepreneurs and women in corporate America, her work has appeared in USA Today, The Denver Post, The Journal News, and the San Jose Mercury News, among others. Ms. Ossorio has spoken widely on the subject of women in the workplace, including the keynote address at the 2000 conference of the National Association for the Empowerment of Hispanic Women.
Laura J. Lederer received her B.A. magna cum laude in comparative religions from the University of Michigan. After 10 years in philanthropy as director of community and social concerns at a private foundation, she continued her education at the University of San Francisco Law School and DePaul College of Law and received her juris doctorate in June 1994. 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 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. Lederer founded and directed The Protection Project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1997. In 2000, she moved The Protection Project to Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). She is adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Law Center, where she has taught for six years, including the first full course on international trafficking in persons offered at a law school. For five years she served as Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons to Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Paula J. Dobriansky. Currently she is Senior Director of Global Projects on Trafficking in Persons in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the U.S. Department of State. In addition she has served as Executive Director of the Senior Policy Operating Group on Trafficking in Persons, a high level interagency policy group that staffs the President’s Inter-agency Task Force on Trafficking in Persons.
Carol Smolenski, the Executive Director and one of the founders of ECPAT-USA, has been working in the field of children’s rights for eighteen years. At ECPAT-USA Carol oversaw the development of the first research project on child trafficking to New York City and two other research projects about commercial sexual exploitation of children. She was the Project Director for the New York City Community Response to Trafficking Project in New York, a multi-faceted ground breaking project to inform communities at risk for human trafficking about the federal anti-trafficking law and help obtain better protections for victims. The Project specialized in working with grassroots community groups and in facilitating relationships between community organizations and criminal justice agents. She is at the Advisory Committee for the national Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Community Intervention Project, the HHS/USCCB Contract Advisory Board, and the International Human Trafficking Leadership and Training Project Advisory Committee with the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence. She developed the Protect Children in Tourism Project in Mexico and Belize. She has spoken at numerous conferences and has presented testimony in venues ranging from the New York City Council to the United States Congress to the United Nations. Carol has a Bachelors degree from Rutgers University, a Masters Degree in Urban Planning from Hunter College.
Presenters on Tuesday Afternoon – September 30, 2008
Barbara Anderson currently resides in Arlington, Massachusetts with her family where she is an active member of Trinity Baptist Church serving as their Missions Committee Chairperson. She is past president of AB Women’s Ministries of Massachusetts and serves as their Director of the MA Break the Chains Project on Human Trafficking. Barbara holds a B.A. Degree in Youth Ministries and a Masters Degree in Education from Gordon College in Massachusetts and work as an Administrator for the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University.
Ana White was born and raised in Cordoba, Argentina, as been living in the United States since October 2004 and became a U.S. citizen in November 2007. She received an undergraduate degree from the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba and graduated with a master’s degree in Latin American Studies/ International Migration from the University of California San Diego (UCSD). Her master’s thesis focused on gender and migration issues. She has a background in research in the social sciences, particularly on social issues affecting migrant communities. Ana have experience working in an immigration law firm and on number of research projects that focus on migration issues. She recently moved to Washington D.C., where she worked for the International Migration Organization (IOM), first in the Media and External Relations department and later in the Community Stabilization Unit. Currently, Ana works in the Office of Government Relations of the Episcopal Church as the Immigration and Refugee Policy Analyst. As a part of the Advocacy Center she works on policy on immigration and refugee issues, including resettlement, comprehensive immigration reform, human trafficking, and refugees and asylum seekers.
Una Stevenson, born in Manchester, England. Married to Archie Stevenson. They have three sons and five grand children. Since 1991, and the birth of ECPAT (End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism), she was volunteer contact for Rev. Ron O'Grady, founder of ECPAT, New Zealand; Virginia Hadsell, founder of the Center for Responsible Tourism, CA.; ECPAT International and ECPAT-USA. In 1994, she was elected Vice Moderator, of Peace and Justice Issues, for the Presbyterian Women - Churchwide Coordinating Team. Una also served as a resource person to the P.W. Global Exchange to Thailand, Cambodia, the Phillipines and California, in 1996-1997.
In 1996, she represented Presbyterian Women and attended the "First World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children," in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1997, Una was lead writer of an Overture, "Recognizing and Action on the Problems of Child Prostitution in Community and Other Countries", from the Presbytery of Utah. Approved with minor changes.
In 2004, Una wrote two Resolutions for Church Women United, "Abuse of Immigrant Women and Children" and Sexual Abuse of Children". Both were approved with slight changes.
In November, 2004, she was elected Chair for the Church Women United "Trafficking and Abuse of Children" Action Team. This year, 2008, Una was lead writer, together with Voices of Orthodox Women, for an Overture for the Presbytery of Plains and Peaks, "Trafficking of Women: Internationally and Nationally." The Overture passed with minor changes.
Amy Hartman is the National Director of Cherish Our Children, and she is a Diaconal Minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Amy has worked within the ELCA for fifteen years, seeking ways to further engage leaders and congregations in the work of preventing sexual exploitation. She graduated from Luther Seminary in St. Paul in 2006 with a Master of Arts degree. Her MA Thesis was entitled, "Release to the Captives: Preaching on the System of Sexual Exploitation.” Amy has presented workshops at numerous synod assemblies, theological conferences, and women’s conventions within the ELCA.