Laura Lederer, JD Presents a New Healthcare Study at Anti-Human Trafficking Conference July 16-18

TAMPA, Fla. - April 25, 2014 - PRLog -- The fourth National Human Trafficking In America Conference will be held July 16-18, 2014 in West Palm Beach, FL. Trafficking In America Task Force's annual conference is designed for the general public as well as professionals and anti-human trafficking advocates to become informed and educated by experts and authorities on current data and related issues; to protect their at-risk youth; and to mobilize and engage people across America to help turn this horrendous crime of human trafficking around.

Laura Lederer, J.D. has a tremendous amount of experience in the areas that fuel human trafficking. From 2001 to 2009, she served as Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons to Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Paula J. Dobriansky, and then Senior Director of Global Projects in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the U.S. Department of State. From 2001 – 2009, she was the Executive Director of the Senior Policy Operating Group on Trafficking in Persons, a high level interagency policy group that staffed the President’s cabinet-level Inter-agency Task Force on Trafficking in Persons. She is Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown Law Center, 2001 – present and teaches LLM and J.D. course on international trafficking in persons covering U.S. law; foreign national law; international treaties and conventions; the scope and nature of the problem; trafficking routes, trends, and patterns; and related issues including rule of law such as corruption, money laundering, terrorism, and transnational criminal activity.

With the theme of the 2014 Conference, Restoring Humanity From Modern Day Slavery, it is appropriate that Lederer present the recent study created from interviews with 107domestic victims of sex trafficking. Victims discussed the health problems they experienced during trafficking. In addition, the paper examines victims' interactions with various types of healthcare providers. The focus groups revealed that nearly all victims experienced physical and mental health problems while being trafficked, including serious communicable and other diseases, injuries resulting from violence, substance abuse, and reproductive health issues. The paper summarizes data about the health problems reported by sex trafficking survivors to present a fuller picture of the health consequences that victims suffer.  A majority of survivors sought healthcare at some point during the time they were trafficked. The paper reports on the contact victims had with health care providers including hospital emergency wards, urgent care clinics, neighborhood clinics, women's clinics, Planned Parenthood clinics, and general practitioners.  Many providers were unaware of the fact that they were treating a trafficking victim, and unaware of the force, fraud, and coercion involved in trafficking.

As founder and President of Global Centurion (visit www.globalcenturion.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to playing a vital role in eradicating world slavery, “In previous research programs Global Centurion identified over one hundred cases of street gang involvement in sex trafficking in the United States,” says Lederer. “In the last two years, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia have put together a vigorous enforcement plan and gone after street gangs who traffic children. This is a model for any district which wants to put street gang traffickers out of business and behind bars.”

While Laura Lederer has been recognized for her work across the world, some of her many awards include the 1997, Gustavus Meyers Center for Study of Human Rights Annual Award for Outstanding Work on Human Rights for her work on harmful speech issues. In September, 2009, she received the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Humanitarian Service Award for her work to stop human trafficking. The award is “the College’s greatest living alumni honor” and is given to recognize noble character and citizenship and to celebrate service to humanity. On November 2, 2009, she also received the Protection Project Human Rights Award for her invaluable contribution to the global movement to stop human trafficking.

Visit www.traffickinginamericataskforce.org for more details on the conference. TIATF is a 501c3 non-profit charitable organization and has been working since 2004 to educate the American population about the reality of the sale of American women, men, and children into sexual slavery for the profit and pleasure of their perpetrators, and that the forced labor trafficking of both adults and children is real in this country.

Our vision is to help eliminate the human trafficking of women, men and minor children in America, and to provide a culture for our children free of sexual exploitation and slavery, where people know and own their own intrinsic value.