Cynthia Bendlin is a Paraguayan activist against human trafficking. [1] As of 2008 she is the manager of the International Order for Migration's counter-trafficking information campaign in the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. [2] She has led seminars about how to combat human trafficking in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. [3] Bendlin and her family have faced threats due to her work against human trafficking, and she has been forced to move. [4] [5]
Bendlin received a 2008 International Women of Courage Award. [6] [1] At the award dinner, she said "This [award] is not for us; it is for all that we are fighting for". [7]
She received the Ruby Prize from the Soroptimist International Millenium Club in 2013. [8]
Lydia María Cacho Ribeiro is a Mexican journalist, feminist, and human rights activist. Described by Amnesty International as "perhaps Mexico's most famous investigative journalist and women's rights advocate", Cacho's reporting focuses on violence against and sexual abuse of women and children.
Deshamanya Radhika Coomaraswamy is a Sri Lankan lawyer, diplomat and human rights advocate who served as an Under-Secretary General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict from 2006 to 2012. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed her to the position in April 2006. In 1994, she was appointed the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women — the first under this mandate. Her appointment marked the first time that violence against women was conceptualized as a political issue internationally.
Prostitution in Argentina is legal under Federal law. Article 19 of the constitution states: "The private actions of people that do not offend in any way the public order and morality, nor damage a third person, are only reserved to God, and are exempt from the authority of the magistrates." Organised prostitution is illegal. In addition, individual provinces may place further restriction on the trade. For example, in San Juan, publicly offering sex services for money is punishable by up to 20 days in jail. In 2012, newspapers were banned from carrying classified-ads offering sexual services. UNAIDS estimated there to be about 75,000 prostitutes in the country in 2016.
Laura María Agustín is an anthropologist who studies illegal migration, informal labor markets, trafficking, and the sex industry. Blogging and speaking publicly as the Naked Anthropologist, she is critical of the conflation of the terms "human trafficking" and "prostitution". She argues that what she calls the "rescue industry" often ascribes victim status to people who have made conscious and rational decisions to migrate knowing they will be selling sex, and who do not consider themselves to be victims. She states that such views on prostitution originate in what she calls "fundamentalist feminism". She advocates for a cultural study of commercial sex, a theoretical framework she created in the journal Sexualities in 2005.
Laura J. Lederer is a pioneer in the work to stop human trafficking. She is a legal scholar and former Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons in the Office for Democracy and Global Affairs of the United States Department of State. She has also been an activist against human trafficking, prostitution, pornography, and hate speech. Lederer is founder of The Protection Project, a legal research institute at Johns Hopkins University devoted to combating trafficking in persons.
Sunitha Krishnan is an Indian social activist and chief functionary and co-founder of Prajwala, a non-governmental organization that rescues, rehabilitates and reintegrates sex-trafficked victims into society. She was awarded India's fourth highest civilian award the Padma Shri in 2016.
Paraguay is a source and transit country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically sex trafficking, as well as a source and transit country for men, women, and children in forced labor. Most Paraguayan trafficking victims are found in Argentina, Spain, and Bolivia; fewer victims are exploited in Brazil, Chile, France, South Korea, and Japan. In one case, 44 suspected Paraguayan trafficking victims were detained at the international airport in Amsterdam, and Dutch authorities arrested the alleged trafficking offender. In another case, 13 Paraguayan women were found in conditions of forced prostitution in a brothel in La Paz, Bolivia. Paraguay was a destination country for 30 Indonesian orphans, who were allegedly brought into the country for a long-term soccer camp, but who the government suspects are trafficking victims.
The International Women of Courage Award, also referred to as the U.S. Secretary of State's International Women of Courage Award, is an American award presented annually by the United States Department of State to women around the world who have shown leadership, courage, resourcefulness, and willingness to sacrifice for others, especially in promoting women's rights.
Sara Susana del Valle Trimarco de Veron, or Susana Trimarco, is an Argentinian human rights activist, whose efforts to combat human trafficking and corruption have been recognized internationally. After the 2002 disappearance of her daughter, who is believed to have been kidnapped by a human trafficking network, she spent years searching for her daughter, and started a foundation to support victims of sex trafficking. Her lobbying is credited as bringing corruption and government impunity to the fore in Argentina, a discussion which led to a 2011 law banning the advertisement of sexual services in newspapers and magazines.
Human trafficking in Argentina is the illegal trade in persons for purposes of reproductive slavery, sexual exploitation, forced labor, organ removal, or any form of modern slavery.
Débora Cristiane de Oliveira, known as Debinha Miri or simply Debinha, is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder or forward for the Kansas City Current of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) and the Brazil national team.
Aziza Siddiqui is an Afghan women's rights activist. She was the Women's Rights Coordinator with the Afghan NGO Action Aid, where she conducted research on the situation of rural Afghan women and educated them about their rights, as well as organized trainings on decision-making, despite being personally threatened for her work.
Shatha Abdul Razzak Abbousi is an Iraqi women's rights activist.
Eaman al-Gobory is the National Medical Officer for the International Organization of Migration, an international aid organization in Iraq.
Begum Jan is a doctor and the founder of the Tribal Women Welfare Association, which educates tribal women in Northwest Pakistan about their rights, and gives them medical training. She grew up in South Waziristan, a conservative area of Pakistan, but her father encouraged her to become a doctor. She attended a school for boys as a child because there was no school for girls, and when her tribal elders forbid her to attend high school she studied with a tutor instead.
Androula Christofidou Henriques is a Cypriot activist who campaigns against human trafficking.
Chanchanit Martorell, is an activist, educator, urban planner, and a community development practitioner. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the Thai Community Development Center.
Nadia Murad Basee Taha is an Iraqi-born Yazidi human rights activist based in Germany. In 2014, as part of the Yazidi genocide by the Islamic State, she was abducted from her hometown of Kocho in Iraq and much of her community was massacred. After losing most of her family, Murad was held as an Islamic State sex slave for three months, alongside thousands of other Yazidi women and girls.
Chelo Alvarez-Stehle is a Spanish and American journalist and documentary filmmaker. In Japan, she worked as managing editor for International Press En Español weekly and as Tokyo correspondent for El Mundo daily. As a documentary filmmaker she is best known for Sands of Silence [es], winner of the 59th Southern California Journalism Awards by the Los Angeles Press Club for Best Feature Documentary.
Mabel Rehnfeldt is a Paraguayan reporter and editor for ABC Digital–ABC Color.