by Jennifer Kimball (MO '08)

When I talk with people about my work at the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, they frequently ask if it’s depressing to hear about terrible abuses people inflect on other human beings. For me, the reality is quite different. While I do see some of the darkest aspects of human nature, I also get to see the some of the brightest and most inspiring aspects.

I met Wendi Adelson (FL ’00) at TSLW in 2008, soon after my selection as a 2008 scholar from Missouri. The following summer, I met Martina Vandenberg (CA ’88) during Summer Institute at the Truman Scholars Association Conference, and I recently had the chance to connect with Kristina Filopovich (OR ’96). Adelson,  Vandenberg, and Filopovich’s work focuses on the severe human rights abuse of human trafficking. We are only beginning to understand this global problem and its scope and extent in the U.S. As a relatively new scholar, I have been fortunate to learn from other scholars who have been pioneers, and whose anti-trafficking work has touched many victims and helped shape the field.

After finishing her graduate work at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, Vandenberg moved to Moscow, Russia, where she co-founded one of the country’s first rape crisis centers. Through this work, Vandenberg met an American attorney and filmmaker, Gillian Caldwell, who was developing a film about the trafficking of women from the former Soviet Union. “At that time, people were aware of trafficking in Southeast Asia, but it was a new issue in Russia,” Vandenberg says. Vandenberg helped Caldwell connect with the feminist activists in Russia working to combat violence against women, and started learning about human trafficking.  After operating a grant fund for women’s rights NGOs in Russia and Ukraine for nearly two years, Vandenberg returned to the United States and attended law school.

While in law school, Vandenberg received a human rights internship grant to conduct research for the Israel Women’s Network, an NGO based in Jerusalem.   Vandenberg spent seven months in Israel, documenting the trafficking of women to that country for forced prostitution.  She eventually published a report on the issue, including documentation of the trafficking victims’ detention in an Israeli women’s prison. After returning to the United States, Vandenberg accepted a position in the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, continuing to work at HRW while completing her law degree.   Both during and after law school, Vandenberg documented violence against women in the former Soviet Union, as well as rape as a war crime and trafficking in the Balkans.    She enjoyed working while attending law school.  “While lots of folks went to Florida for Spring Break,” Vandenberg remembered, “I went to Bosnia to interview trafficking victims.  It provided some much-needed perspective.”

After five years at Human Rights Watch, Vandenberg was eager to use her law degree and to learn to litigate.  She approached former Truman Foundation Executive Secretary Louis Blair for advice. Vandenberg eventually landed at Jenner and Block LLP, a law firm known for its extensive pro bono work.  She seems to do “all pro bono, all the time,” pursuing civil remedies for trafficking victims in the U.S. federal courts, and helping women trafficked for forced labor apply for immigration remedies.  She and her colleagues at Jenner advocate for victims, helping them navigate the criminal prosecution process as witnesses. Many of the cases Vandenberg has worked on over the past few years involve exploitation by employers who enjoy diplomatic immunity or work for the World Bank.  Vandenberg calls the forced labor cases that she focuses on the “forgotten side of human trafficking.”

Like Vandenberg, Filipovich came to anti-trafficking work through previous work on violence against women. While an undergraduate, she founded a non-profit working on women’s issues, before pursuing a Watson Fellowship.  She encountered sex trafficking in Vietnam and Thailand while researching women’s issues internationally. Filipovich’s career path has taken her from working for President Clinton’s National Advisory Council on Violence Against Women reviewing results of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to researching gender issues, including trafficking, overseas through a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to working on micro-credit issues at Women for Women International, before coming to Jenner & Block two-and-a-half years ago.

At Jenner and Block, Filipovich works with Vandenberg, pursuing civil remedies for trafficking victims in the United States, and is working on her fourth trafficking case. “We’re able to do cutting edge litigation work on these topics,” says Filipovich, noting that many times the government does not formally prosecute the cases, so the civil law suit may be the only repercussion the trafficker faces.

Adelson first became aware of human trafficking through her interest in international relations and humanitarian immigration work. After finishing her undergraduate work, Adelson worked for the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. She then received a Gates Fellowship to study comparative immigration policy at Cambridge University. Following training in law, Adelson started working for the Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights (CAHR) in 2007 after spending a year as a clinical fellow with the Children & Youth Law Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law. On her first day there, Adelson worked on a case for a teenage victim of trafficking. “I see human trafficking as part of a continuum of human exploitation,” says Adelson. “Training in law gave me a discrete set of tools to help people,” she said, adding that she gets to work with and know her clients personally and professionally, and is able to see the direct impact of her work.

Adelson’s anti-trafficking work centers on immigration remedies for foreign national victims of trafficking in the United States. Adelson helps trafficking victims apply for and navigate the T and U visa process, special visas for victims of trafficking and victims of crime. Adelson also advocates for the people with whom she works, and helps them navigate the service process. Like Vandenberg and Filipovich, Adelson’s work doesn’t end with the case work. The CAHR was asked by the Governor of Florida to help create the state’s strategic plan to combat human trafficking and serve victims in Florida, and through her work on this project, Adelson has conducted hundreds of interviews of service providers. Adelson will be teaching a course on human trafficking this fall and Filipovich currently works as an adjunct law professor at American University where her gender and law course includes a focus on human trafficking.

When asked what keeps her motivated, Vandenberg answers without hesitation, “My clients. They are totally inspiring, after all that they have survived.”

Adelson concurs, citing the relationships she builds with individual clients as sustaining. “I feel like I’m part of the solution,” says Adelson. “I work with people at a turning point, and I can help them reclaim their lives.”

“I’m lucky,” says Filipovich. “I’ve always thought I was really lucky to find my passion [for gender issues/women's rights] early and know that I can make a difference.”

I also count myself as extremely lucky. Human trafficking is a terrible crime against people, and hearing their stories and seeing the abuse they suffered can be almost immobilizing at times. However, I draw strength from seeing the resiliency of survivors and from the inspiration of others working in the field to continue to do what I love: working to end this human rights abuse.

Jennifer Kimball (MO ‘08) is the regional specialist for the Northeast for the National Human Trafficking Resource Center.