Women and girls from rural areas face intersectional discrimination leaving them at risk of sexual exploitation globally. From the indigenous background, isolated, marginalized, and hypersexualized due to racist stereotypes, women in rural areas worldwide are subject to a system that feeds off sexual violence, normalized sexism, racism, and economic vulnerability.

Panelists:

Vednita Carter

Anti-sex trafficking survivor, activist, author, and Executive Director of Breaking Free, Carter grew up in Twin Cities, Minnesota. Unable to afford college, she responded to an ad looking for dancers, which turned out to be an ad looking for strippers. Carter saw many women in her profession migrate to prostitution; she said it was a “stepping stone to prostitution.” She was trapped in the industry for a year before she was able to escape. In 1989, Carter began to work with women in prostitution in Minnesota at a different agency, which later closed, and became program director. In 1996, Carter founded Breaking Free, an organization that aids girls and women in exiting prostitution. She subsequently became this organization’s executive director, and the program expanded to offer more support, including: “emergency services such as food, clothing, shelter, medical assistance, legal assistance to victims of trafficking.” By 1998, the organization rented an apartment block to permanently re-house women and girls; by 2010, they had more apartments and three “transitional houses.” In 2015, the housing block was named “Jerry’s Place” after Sgt. Gerald Vick was closed due to funding issues. In their book Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice, Francine Sherman and Francine Jacobs call Carter “a leading service provider for exploited women and girls.” Carter has been published in Hastings Women’s Law Journal, the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law, and the Journal of Trauma Practice. Carter contributed the piece “Prostitution = Slavery” to the 2003 anthology Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women’s Anthology for a New Millennium, edited by Robin Morgan.

Alika Kinan

Women’s rights activist, a survivor of human trafficking for sexual exploitation, and a defender of the abolition of prostitution, Kinan was a victim of the crime of human trafficking. In 2012 she was rescued from the El Sheik whiskery in Ushuaia city. Since then, she developed a criminal case against her captors and against the State, which protected the activity of the traffickers and then refused to give the corresponding help to people in her situation according to the law. In 2016, the Federal Criminal Oral Court of Tierra del Fuego sentenced her kidnapper to seven years in prison for the crime of trafficking aggravated by multiple victims. It recognized the civil responsibility of the Municipality of Ushuaia. On March 16, 2016, she was named Outstanding Woman of the Year 2015 by the Senate of the Argentine Nation. In 2017, she received the Hero Against Human Trafficking Award for Argentina, Heroes Against Modern Slavery, awarded by the United States Department during the International Meeting against Human Trafficking at the Washington Capitol. She directs the Study, Research, and Training Program on Human Trafficking and Exploitation (PEFITE) of the Academic Secretariat of the National University of San Martín (UNSAM).

Ally-Marie Diamond: virtual

Ally is a survivor of long-term childhood sexual, physical & emotional abuse. As a Survivor into her teens/early adulthood, she finds herself on the streets, in and out of mental institutions. With promises of a home, financial stability, and friends, she finds herself in Prostitution. Escaping from this lifestyle a few years later, she has what she can only describe as an out-of-body experience. As she lies dying, she promises to make a difference in the world. However, Ally was still fragile, and as we fast forward twenty years, she had already been in two violent domestic relationships. With her nine children, she finds her strength and leaves, beginning her journey to self-discovery and healing. Now Ally remembers the promise she made as she lay dying all those years ago and shares her journey to empower women. Our youth to be their strongest and most loving selves while helping them recognize their gifts and heart to spread love and purpose throughout the world.

Shandra Woworuntu

Chair of the International Survivor of Trafficking Advisory Council to the OSCE — ODIHR, she was a member of the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking and a survivor of human trafficking and domestic violence. Woworuntu was born in Indonesia, and in 2001 she traveled to the USA expecting a hospitality job but was forced into the sex industry and prostituted. She eventually escaped her captors and helped convict her traffickers. On 20 March 2014, Governor Chris Christie appointed Woworuntu to be a Commission of Human Trafficking for the state of New Jersey. On 16 December 2015, President Obama appointed Woworuntu as one of 11 members of the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, and the council held its first meeting on 18 October 2016. Woworuntu is the founder of the Mentari Human Trafficking Survivor Empowerment Program Inc.— an organization aimed at empowering human trafficking survivors in their reintegration back into the community and society independently through the DREAM, Direct Services, Resources, Empowerment, Advocacy, and Mentorship. As a survivor leader, Woworuntu is devoted to helping other survivors through an empowerment program. In 2017, Woworuntu was recognized as the L’Oréal Paris Women of Worth National Honoree through a public vote and rewarded with a $35,000 contribution for Mentari to continue making a difference in the lives of sex-trafficking survivors. As a survivor advocate and lobbyist, she helped to pass local and federal anti-trafficking legislation. She was recognized as the 2020 Power of Diversity, the most influential 100 Asian American in New York Politics and Policy. She was recognized as Power Diversity Asian 100: New York’s Asian American leaders, and in 2022, she was recognized to become The 2022 Power of Diversity Asian 100: New York’s Asian American trailblazers.

Moderated by Marta Torres

International jurists specialized in human rights with a gender perspective. She has a Master’s Degree in Public International Law from Sorbonne University and in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies from the Autonomous University of Madrid. She has been active in abolitionist activism against prostitution for more than 25 years. She has participated in different international decision-making forums, especially in the deliberation sessions of the United Nations Palermo Protocol, between 1998 and 2000, representing the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International. (CATW). She currently represents CATW in the European Union Civil Society Platform against Human Trafficking. She has made different interventions in the French National Assembly and other public forums in the French countryside while adopting the French Abolitionist Law of 2016. She is also a representative of the Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution International (CAP Intl) in Spain and Latin America. She currently gives lectures at universities and national and international specialized forums.

Time: 6:15 PM — 7:45 PM EDT

Free!

Registration