PRESS RELEASE: UN Event Exposes Online Child Pornography and Sex Trafficking

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 25, 2017
Contact: Lisa Correnti
Email: media@c-fam.org
Phone: 212-754-5948

Even as Google and the tech lobby stymie Congressional efforts to punish online sex trafficking, UN member states and anti-trafficking organizations will meet at UN headquarters over two days for a special High-Level Event on the margins of the General Assembly to discuss the challenge of eradicating child trafficking on the internet.

Activists will describe the legal and regulatory challenges to eradicating sex trafficking to the President of the General Assembly, H.E. Miroslav Lajčák, the Executive Director of the UN Office for Drugs and Crime, H.E. Yury Fedotov, and other UN high-level representatives.

U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner will present her recent efforts on Capitol Hill to end sex trafficking in children. Camille Cooper will describe the magnitude of online child pornography with 80% of victims in known images under the age of 12.

Deidre Pujols, wife of baseball player Albert Pujols, will speak of her work to provide victims with vocational training and life skills through her organization Open Gate International.

Survivor leader Rachel Moran will present on the myths of decriminalizing prostitution propagated by groups like Amnesty International. Benjamin Nolot will discuss the need for social reform and present his new film Liberated about college spring break hookup culture and the startling normalization of sexual violation which fuels the global sex trade.

Child labor survivor leader and UN advisor Rani Hong who was sold into the slave trade at age seven will speak on her efforts to eradicate the use of slave labor in all aspects of business. And, Laura Lederer, president of Global Centurion will present her findings on the physical and psychological harm to trafficked girls and women.

Former U.S. Congresswoman and 2012 U.S. presidential candidate Michelle Bachman, will moderate the event.

The two-day event will begin with a film screening of two anti-trafficking documentaries, I am Jane Doe by Mary Mazzio and Nefarious by Benjamin Nolot.

What: High-Level Event on The Trade in Minors in the Digital Age: Waking up the World to the Dire Need to Stop Trade in Children, Child Sexual Exploitation and Child Pornography, including via the Internet.

When: September 27-28. RSVP by September 25 to marianna@c-fam.org (Passes required to attend.)

Where: Conference Room 4 and ECOSOC Chamber, UN Headquarters, New York

Who: 22 Member States representing the Group of Friends United Against Human Trafficking jointly with the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), Global Centurion, Open Gate International, Exodus Cry.