[PITTSBURGH, PA] Dr. Kevin Bales, considered the world's leading expert on slavery and Ben Skinner, author of A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern Day Slavery will be presenting "Slavery: An Old Crime in the New Global Economy" as part of the Global Issues Lecture Series sponsored by Global Solutions Education Fund Pittsburgh, the Global Studies Program and the International Business Center at the University of Pittsburgh. The lecture will be held on October 2, 2008, in Room 107, Barco Law building at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. The speakers will be discussing their experiences with traffickers and survivors and how modern day slavery affects our lives and the production of everyday goods.
Human trafficking is defined by the Office to Monitor and Combat Human Trafficking in Washington as "modern day slavery involving victims who are forced,defrauded or coerced into labor or sexual exploitation." The 2005 United States State Department "Trafficking in Persons" report found that 600,000 to 800,000 people mostly women and children are trafficked across national borders while 14,500 to 17,500 people are trafficked within the United States. According to Dr. Mary Burke, the coordinator of the local Project to End Human Trafficking, 27 victims were identified and given support in our area over the past year.
Dr. Bales is the President of Free the Slaves, the US sister organization of Anti-Slavery International, the world's oldest human rights organization and Professor of Sociology at Roehampton University in London. Ben Skinner is a journalist who investigated trafficking networks and slave quarries, urban child markets and illegal brothels. In the process, he became the first person in history to observe the sales of human beings on four continents.
Global Solutions Education Fund Pittsburgh and the Global Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh launched the Global Issues Lectures(GILS) in 2002. GILS is an informal lecture series held once a month during the academic year on the University Campus with each lecture topic focusing on a different area of global concern.
Founded in 1948 as the World Federalist Association of Pittsburgh, Global Solutions Pittsburgh is a 501c3 non-profit organization. It is the local chapter of the national Citizens for Global Solutions, a non-partisan membership organization that envisions a future in which nations work together to abolish war, protect our rights and freedoms, and solve the problems facing humanity that no nation can solve alone. Through our programs, we educate Americans about our interdependence, promote a US foreign policy based on principled engagement.