Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Yasmin Z. Vafa is co-founder and Executive Director of Rights4Girls, a national human rights organization dedicated to ending gender-based violence against young women and girls in the U.S. An award-winning human rights lawyer and advocate, Vafa's work focuses on the intersections of race, gender, violence, and the law. She has successfully advocated for several laws at the federal and state levels, testified before the U.S. Senate, state legislatures, and international human rights bodies, and co-authored multiple reports detailing the over-criminalization of girls and young women of color, particularly, survivors of sexual violence.  Vafa and her work have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, ABC News, and more. She currently serves on the U.S. Advisory Committee on the Sex Trafficking of Children and Youth, serves as adjunct faculty for the National Judicial Institute on Child Sex Trafficking— an intensive judicial training she co-designed and leads with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and previously served on both the Department of Justice National Girls' Initiative Advisory Committee as well as the DOJ National Task Force on the Use of Restraints on Pregnant Women and Girls Under Correctional Custody. She has received numerous awards for her work including the Lois Haight Award for Excellence and Innovation for her legislative advocacy from Congress. 

Melanie Thompson is an expert speaker, activist, and leader in the global fight to end prostitution and commercial sexual exploitation. Trafficked and sold into prostitution at the age of 12, Thompson was later arrested, served time in detention, and then placed into the foster care system. She became an activist at age 14. She  is both a national and international subject matter expert consultant and speaks to the intersectionality of race, child welfare, juvenile justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and other systems of oppression. Thompson has testified before numerous legislatures and entities, including the United Nations and various parliaments, about the need to pass strong anti-trafficking laws and end the arrests of sex trafficked and prostituted people. She has an extensive media presence, including Netflix, PBS, the NYTimes, CNN and more.  She  sits on several Survivor Advisory Boards working to implement inclusivity and create more effective strategies for survivor leaders everywhere. By day, she serves as the Chief Advocacy & Outreach Officer at CATW. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at CMC.