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Human Trafficking Expert to Speak at Duke

Mary Lindsley

Top-level experts will speak about the challenges to fighting global human trafficking at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, at Duke University.

The panel will include Susan Coppedge, the United States Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, and two other high-ranking federal government officials.

The event will be held in the Fleishman Commons at the Sanford School of Public Policy and is free and open to the public.

In addition to Coppedge, a Duke public policy alumna, panelists include:

-- Andrea Wilson, a foreign service officer in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons with the U.S. State Department (who received a master of public policy and master of business administration degree from Duke in 2012), and

-- Amy Pope, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Homeland Security Advisor at the White House, and a 2001 graduate of Duke.

Each year, the U.S. Department of State releases a Trafficking in Persons Report, which gives every country a score on how well they are combatting the trafficking problem.

“The Trafficking in Persons Report has been provocative and controversial, but ultimately successful” said Judith Kelley, panel moderator, who researches methods of influence in international relations. “The TIP report has been a surprisingly effective tool to get governments to pay attention to and do something about human trafficking.”

Human trafficking, often described as modern-day slavery, is estimated to be a $150 billion industry. It includes forcing young students in West Africa to beg for money instead of allowing them to go to school, or maiming children in South Asia to increase profits from begging. Since 2001, the United States has been working with governments around the world to address the problem.

The event is sponsored by the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke’s Center for International & Comparative Law, The Duke Human Rights Center at the Kenan Institute for Ethics and Duke’s American Grand Strategy Program.

A reception will follow the event, and there will be free parking in the Public Policy lot.