PROGRAM

On March 8, 2012, the Office of the Mayor of the City of New York and Roosevelt House – in celebration of International Women’s Day – held a book discussion followed by a Q&A and conversation with the audience on: Child Exploitation and Trafficking: Examining the Global Challenges and U.S. Responses with authors Virginia M. Kendall and T. Markus Funk. The authors focused on issues surrounding child exploitation and trafficking with a particular focus on interdisciplinary approaches for coordinated responses and solutions, engaging those involved not only in the legal field, but in human rights, public health, social services, politics, and corporate compliance and supply chain management, among others.

About the Book:

Each year, more than two million children around the world fall victim to commercial sexual exploitation. The numbers of children sexually abused for non-commercial purposes are even higher. Put simply, the growing, increasingly-organized epidemic of child exploitation demands a coordinated response. Child Exploitation and Trafficking: Examining the Global Challenges and U.S. Responses aims to bring some fresh thinking to these issues, and help erase the major myths surrounding them.

“[A] milestone on the road to improved policy in this difficult and important area, this book will be an invaluable resource to judges, prosecutors, police, policymakers, criminologists, and the defense bar.”

-Richard A. Posner, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and author of Sex and Reason.

About the Authors:

Hon. Virginia M. Kendall is a judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Before being elevated to the federal bench, Judge Kendall served as a deputy chief in the United States Attorney’s Office in Chicago, where for more than ten years she served as the child exploitation coordinator. She travels extensively both domestically and internationally teaching judges and lawyers about crimes against women and children, and is an adjunct professor of law at Northwestern University School of Law and Loyola University School of Law.

T. Markus Funk, now in private practice as a partner with Perkins Coie, served as a federal prosecutor in Chicago for more than ten years, where he handled many child exploitation cases, including priest Vincent Mccaffrey, Irish Government Minister Stan Mallon, ER nurse Kenneth PeBenito, and Deacon Charles Kelly. He spent two years in Kosovo as the USDOJ Resident Legal Advisor, and has taught law at Oxford University, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the USDOJ National Advocacy Center. He was awarded the USDOJ and the State Department’s highest service awards.

About The New York City Mayor’s Office:

The Mayor’s Office is leading the fight to end human trafficking in a variety of ways, including strategic community partnerships and the first-of-its-kind public awareness initiative entitled: Let’s Call an End to Human Trafficking. The City of New York serves as a nationwide model for engaging stakeholders and the general public to join the cause of eradicating this crime.