Human Trafficking: Architectures of Understanding, Enforcement and Aid

Presented by the S.J. Quinney College of Law’s Social Justice Student Initiative

8:30a.m. – 2:30 p.m., S.J. Quinney College of Law, Level 6
The 2018 Human Trafficking Symposium will discuss how constructions and definitions of human trafficking impact how it is addressed. Who are the victims, who are the criminals, and who determines this and how? Are there policy gaps? Who might be falling through?

This year, we have invited professionals and community leaders who work against human trafficking at all levels, from policy to enforcement, from aid to prosecution, to discuss their unique perspectives of what the problem is, its content, and borders. We will discover how each of these organizations work together, discuss what different or competing understandings of the issue are informing conduct and policies, then talk about what is being done, is not being done, and where there are issues that need to be addressed.

4 hours CLE (including 1 ethics CLE). Free and open to the public. To submit questions please visit slido.com. Then type in the #4 digit event code (see agenda below for the specific panel codes). This event will be streamed and recorded on the S.J. Quinney College of Law YouTube channel »

Online registration is now closed. Registration will be available at the door.

This event is sponsored by the the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law Global Law Program and the S.J. Quinney College of Law.

Symposium Agenda

8:00 – 9:00 AM: Registration, check-in, and light breakfast reception

9:00 – 9:30 AM: Introduction and opening comments by Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes

9:30 – 11:00 AM: Keynote Address – Understanding Trafficking: Lexicons and Architectures (#N168)

Claude d’Estree, Director of the Human Trafficking Center at the Josef Korbel School of International Relations, University of Denver, and United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (GIFT)

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Catered lunch

12:00 – 1:00 PM: Villain or Broker; Victim or Survivor: A Conversation on Definitions and Narratives (#C451)

Panelists:

• Todd Weiler, Utah State Senator
  
• Nathaniel Brown, 23rd Navajo Nation Council Delegate, Health, Education & Human Services Committee, Sexual Assault Prevention subcommittee, & Arizona Human Trafficking Council member
• Nubia Peña, Utah Juvenile Defender Attorneys (UJDA)
• Dr. Annie Isabel Fukushima, Ph.D.Assistant Professor, Division of Ethnic Studies, School for Cultural & Social Transformation and Assistant Professor, College of Social Work, University of Utah
• Aden Batar, Director of Migration and Refugee Services, Catholic Community Services

1:00 – 2:00 PM: Traffickers and Trafficked; Ethics of Enforcement and Aid (#T170)

Panelists

• Russell Smith, Director SRCURE Strike Force, Human Trafficking Task Force
  
• Elizabeth Hendrix, Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Director, Refugee & Immigrant Center, Asian Association of Utah
• David Johnson, Utah Juvenile Defender Attorneys (UJDA)
• Greg Rogers, recently retired FBI agent who has done extensive work investigating international and domestic sex trafficking

2:00 – 2:30 PM: Closing remarks

2:30 – 3:00 PM: Reception

Panelist Bio’s

Todd Weiler, Utah State Senator
Todd Weiler was born in Georgia, raised in the Chicago suburbs and lived in Germany for two years. He married Elizabeth Gordon in 1991 and they have 4 children. He has a business and a law degree from BYU, having graduated cum laude in 1996 from the J. Reuben Clark Law School where he served on law review. Todd litigated with downtown firms for 15 years, most recently with Dorsey & Whitney. In 2011, Todd went in-house with Logistic Specialties. He currently serves as LSI’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel. Before joining the Utah Senate in 2012, Todd served on a city council, and was chair of his local chamber of commerce and county political party. Todd chairs the Judiciary standing committee and the Judicial confirmation committee. Additionally, he sits on the rules, Business and Labor and Retirement standing committees, and on the Health and Human Services appropriation committee.

Nubia Peña, Utah Juvenile Defender Attorneys (UJDA)
Ms. Nubia Peña received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law in May 2016. During that year, she was selected as one of 25 law students in the nation to be recognized and highlighted for her social justice activism in the National Jurist, a leading news source in legal education. Ms. Peña has actively sought to bring awareness to issues of violence and systemic oppression through her personal and professional endeavors. She has over a decade of experience assisting survivors of domestic abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking, and violent crimes as a Law Enforcement Victim Advocate. Since 2007, Ms. Peña has been the Training and Prevention Education Specialist at the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault (UCASA) where she developed trainings on Assisting and Empowering Immigrant Survivors, Culturally Relevant Youth Advocacy, Understanding Human Trafficking, and Social Justice as a Prevention Framework. She also travels nationally as a Training Consultant bringing awareness to the intersections of trauma and the School-to-Prison Pipeline, an epidemic that targets our most vulnerable youth by streamlining them into the juvenile justice system. In addition, Ms. Pena is a member of the zealous team at the Utah Juvenile Defender Attorneys where she advocates for youth rights during detention and delinquency proceedings.

Annie Isabel Fukushima
Dr. Annie Isabel Fukushima is Assistant Professor in the Division of Ethnic Studies with the School for Cultural & Social Transformation and the College of Social Work at the University of Utah. Prior to joining the faculty of University of Utah, Dr. Fukushima was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Rutgers University (2013 – 2015) with the Institute for Research on Women and the Department of Women and Gender Studies. She received her Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley, in Ethnic Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies (2012). She serves as the Secretary / Treasurer for the American Sociological Association’s Section on Human Rights, senator representing the School for Cultural & Social Transformation at the University of Utah’s Academic Senate, and is the co-lead for the Institute of Impossible Subjects project, “Migratory Times.” Her research has appeared in peer-reviewed scholarly journals: Feminist Formations, Frontiers: Journal of Women Studies, and Praxis (formerly Phoebe): Gender & Cultural Critiques. Her scholarly interventions also appear in edited anthologies Documenting Gendered Violence, Human Trafficking Reconsidered: Rethinking the Problem, Envisioning New Solutions (2014); and a forthcoming chapter in the anthology Subject(s) of Human Rights. Dr. Fukushima has written on human trafficking, intimacy and race, immigration, war and comfort women, for ABC-Clio, Greenwood Press, and Macmillan. And her general interest publications have appeared in The Essential Abolitionist, Foreign Policy in Focus, The Nation, and Asia-Times Online. Currently Dr. Fukushima is working on her monograph, Migrant Crossings, where she examines the sociopolitical process of witnessing Asian and Latina/o migrants trafficked in the U.S. Dr. Fukushima is committed to praxis, therefore she has worked at all levels of organizations, where she facilitates a bridge between research and practices that address the violence in our lives. Dr. Fukushima has served as an expert witness for human trafficking cases in California and Colorado, and a consultant. Currently she a member of the Freedom Network US, which is a national network of experts working on human trafficking.

Aden Batar
Aden Batar had just completed his law degree at the Somali National University when war broke in 1990. Aden, his wife, and their two young children were forced to flee from place to place inside their home country to escape the violence. After the loss of their eldest son to a tragic accident, Aden and his wife decided they had to leave the country if they were going to survive. Batar first fled to Kenya and later his wife and son joined him there. They lived in Kenya as refugees for two years before being resettled by Catholic Community Services of Utah (CCS) in Logan, Utah. Aden and his family were the first Somalis to be resettled in Utah; they worked hard to complete their educations in America and find employment. SoonAden was asked to join CCS as they continued to resettle Somali refugees. Today, AdenBatar is the Director of Refugee Resettlement and Immigration for CCS and has overseen the resettlement of thousands of refugees from around the world. He serves on the Utah State Refugee Board of Advisors, Utah Multi Cultural Commission, and works with many local community-based organizations. He holds a Law Degree from Somali National University, MPA from University of Utah and he is an Immigration Attorney by training.

Russell Smith,
In 1996 Russell graduated from University of Utah School of Law and was admitted to the bar. Russell did defense work for five years in Salt Lake City before being recruited in 2001 by Arthur Mallory in Churchill County where he began his prosecutory career. Russell served as a prosecutor in Churchill County, NV, Chief Deputy District Attorney for Humboldt County, and was elected District Attorney of Humboldt County soon after. After serving as District Attorney for many years, Russell accepted a position as Director of Insurance Fraud and Workers’ Compensation Fraud Units with the Office of the Attorney General in 2011 and was promoted to Chief of the Fraud Unit in May 2012. Russell was in charge of the General Fraud Unit, Mortgage Fraud Task Force, Workers’ Compensation Fraud Unit, Insurance Fraud Unit, Cybercrime Unit and the Human Trafficking Unit for the Nevada Attorney General. As Chief, Russell was able to facilitate much needed unit cohesion and prosecutions increased across all sectors of the unit. Russell created the Human Trafficking Unit to begin prosecuting this crime under the newly passed law in 2013, and educated agencies and communities throughout the state about human trafficking. Russell arranged for a Deputy Attorney General to work part-time in the U.S. Attorney’s Office to collaborate on prosecutions of Human Trafficking which facilitated rapid training for that prosecutor. Russell worked closely with many stakeholders including the U.S. Attorney’s Office (north/south), FBI, USCIS, county prosecutors, DPS and community coalitions. Russell also promoted the development of the Safe Childhood initiative to provide services for victims of Human Trafficking. Russell also wrote new legislation modernizing the definition and crime of money laundering in Nevada and prepared the unit to prosecute the newly developed law if it passed legislation. To this end, he arranged to temporarily place a Deputy Attorney General in the U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuting money laundering crimes. This enabled an experienced prosecutor to return and educate the unit as to how to best prosecute this crime. Russell also placed an investigator with the Money Laundering Task Force to work part time with the IRS investigating money laundering crimes which enabled the investigator to return to the unit and educate other investigators on how to best investigate crimes of money laundering for prosecution. Russell most recently assisted the United States Territory of American Samoa to bolster their prosecution efforts in all areas of the law including human trafficking and fraud. Russell has the ability to build unit cohesion, develop unit focus, see the big picture, develop an individual’s talents and bring necessary stakeholders together. Russell is the Past President of the Nevada District Attorney’s Association (2009) and the Nevada Coalition Against Sexual Violence (2006-2008). He is a Past Commission Member of the Nevada Crime Commission. He is also the recipient of the Kristine Nagy-Johnson Award, For Dedicated Efforts in the Field of Child Abuse & Neglect Prevention, Education & Treatment (2008).

Elizabeth Hendrix
Elizabeth Hendrix is the Program Director for the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Program at the Refugee & Immigrant Center – Asian Association of Utah. RIC-AAU offers direct case management and support services to survivors of human trafficking, provides trainings throughout Utah, and works to build partner networks equipped to serve survivors of trafficking. Elizabeth is an active member of the Utah Trafficking In Persons Task Force. Prior to working with trafficked individuals, Elizabeth worked in refugee services and international development. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Work.

David Johnson
David Johnson is a senior trial attorney at Utah Juvenile Defender Attorneys. He’s spent his entire legal career representing children. He was previously an attorney with the Utah Office of the Guardian ad Litem and a clerk for a judge specializing in Special Education law. David helped create his office’s human-trafficking protocol, and he sits on a Utah multi-agency task force to address policies in dealing with trafficking victims. He is a certified Juvenile Training Immersion instructor with the National Juvenile Defense Center and a graduate of the lauded JTIP summer academy. Prior to attending law school, he was a journalist for multiple publications, including The Salt Lake Tribune.

Previous Human Trafficking Symposiums

2017 event – Human Trafficking: Global Perspectives, Local Solutions

2016 event – At-Risk Youth: Pathways to Delinquency and Sex Trafficking

2015 event – The Invisible Crime: Human Trafficking in Utah

2014 event – Center for Global Justice: Human Trafficking Workshop

For questions about this event contact Kris (801) 585-3440.

Parking:

Free parking is available in the Guardsman Way parking lot. A shuttle bus between the S.J. Quinney College of Law and the parking lot will operate on Friday from 7:45 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. The Guardsman Way lot is at 500 S and Guardsman Way (595 Guardsman Way, Salt Lake City, UT 84108).

For University of Utah employees with a “U” or “A” parking permit, parking may be available in Lot 2 (by the law school) or the Rice Eccles Stadium Lot. Please note that parking is very limited in both of these lots on most days. Without a valid University parking permit, your vehicle can be ticketed.

We encourage you to use public transportation to our event. Take TRAX (light rail) University Red line to the Stadium stop and walk a half block north to the Law School building. The law school is on the Red Route for the University’s free campus shuttles (Carlson Hall stop).

Upon Arrival to the S.J. Quinney College of Law Building:

Upon entering the College of Law building, proceed to the elevators and go to Level 6. Upon reaching level 6, step to the right to the registration area to check in.