Eliminating Sex Trafficking in a Digital Age: With a Chicago Focus is the theme of the 2019 summit on combating sex trafficking, which is hosted Feb. 11 by the College of Law. (Illustration by Heather Hummons)CHICAGO — The state of affairs of sex trafficking in the city of Chicago and what can be done to combat modern day slavery will be addressed in panel discussions on Feb. 11 during the 2019 summit on combating sex trafficking, hosted by DePaul University’s College of Law.
The event — Eliminating Sex Trafficking in a Digital Age: With a Chicago Focus — is free and open to the public and will be held from 4-6 p.m. in the DePaul Center, 1 E. Jackson Blvd., Room 8005, on DePaul’s Loop Campus.
Panel discussions will include speakers from local law enforcement and from Selah Freedom, a national organization with the mission to end sex trafficking. The summit will explore the criminal use of the internet for trafficking in sexual exploitation and the concept of crimes of survival through a survivor’s lens.
“The goal of this event is to bring awareness to the reality of sex trafficking and its prevalence not just as an international problem but one that occurs more often than known in Chicago and the Midwest,” said Heather Hummons, head of Access Services at DePaul’s Rinn Law Library, one of the college’s organizations planning the summit.
“Our hope is to spark conversations among the community about how we can assist in preventing sex trafficking and help with advocacy efforts that support survivors,” Hummons said.
Attorney and researcher Jody Raphael will open the summit and provide a keynote address.
In lieu of admission, attendees are asked to bring a toiletry item, socks, bath towel or Ventra single ride tickets that will be delivered to Traffick Free to help women who have been victims of sex trafficking and other forms of commercial sexual exploitation. A complete list of needed items as well as additional information are online at http://bit.ly/DPA_EliminatingSexTraffickingSummit.
Organizers for the summit include these DePaul College of Law organizations: Vincent G. Rinn Law Library, Schiller DuCanto Family Law Center, Center for Public Interest Law, International Human Rights Law Institute and Journal of Social Justice. External partners include Selah Freedom and the Chicago Bar Association and its Human Trafficking Committee.
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