Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak are joined by Dr. Laura Lederer from Global Centurion. They discuss the connection between street gangs and human trafficking and how law enforcement and the wider community can begin to address this new criminal activity in their community.

Laura Lederer

Laura J. Lederer founded and directed The Protection Project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1997.  From 2001 to 2009, she served as Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons in the U.S. Department of State.  She also served as Executive Director of the Senior Policy Operating Group on Trafficking in Persons, a high-level policy group that staffed the President’s cabinet-level Inter-agency Task Force on Trafficking in Persons. She has worked as a Subject Matter Expert for the U.S. Department of Defense designing trainings on trafficking for the military and data collection instruments to track DoD related trafficking cases, and as Subject Matter Expert for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help integrate human trafficking into Runaway and Homeless Youth programs.  She designed and conducted the first retrospective study of health consequences of human trafficking. Her book, Modern Slavery: A Documentary and Reference Guide (Greenwood Publishing, 2018) examines primary source materials to track the development of the 21st century anti-trafficking movement.

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Resources

[Note from the Ending Human Trafficking podcast team: This episode was recorded in 2011 so the contact information provided is no longer accurate. Please refer endinghumantrafficking.org/contact for the correct contact information to get in touch with the EHT podcast.]

Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] Hello. You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 16, recorded in October 2011. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:29] And I’m Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:31] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. And Sandie, we have today a very special guest with us who is someone who’s just been a tremendous leader in the fight against human trafficking, not only here domestically, but around the globe. And I am going to give you an opportunity to tell the audience who we who we have here today.

Sandie [00:00:56] I’m very excited because probably the most significant teacher mentor for me learning about human trafficking when I first started is Dr. Laura Lederer. And when I met her, she was working for the State Department and now she is the founder and president of Global Centurion. And we’re going to talk to her today about the link between street gangs and human trafficking. And Dave, why don’t you just give us a little bio on her background.

Dave [00:01:26] I’d be happy to. Laura Lederer founded and directed the Protection Project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government back in 1997. And from 2001 til 2009, she served as the Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons to Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, who was Paula Dobriansky at the time, and then Senior Director of Global Projects in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the US Department of State. And from in addition to that, from 2001 to 2009, she was the Executive Director of the Senior Policy Operating Group on Trafficking in Persons, which was a high level interagency group that staff the President’s Cabinet level Int...