MarkAG.jpgThe impact of CCLP’s 2011 Human Trafficking Online report continues to grow, with research director Mark Latonero recently presenting to two conventions of Attorneys General.

On March 29th in Seattle, Latonero presented at the 2012 National Association of Attorneys General Presidential Initiative Summit: “Pillars of Hope: Attorneys General Unite against Human Trafficking.” The panel, titled “The Business of Trafficking: Data Mining and Following the International Money Trail,” was introduced by NAAG President and Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna. Fellow panelists included Samantha Doerr, Public Affairs Manager for the Microsoft Corporation Digital Crimes Unit, Barry M. Koch, Managing Director & Associate General Counsel for JP Morgan Chase & Co., and moderator Louise Shelley, PhD and Director of Terrorism at the Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University. Panelists discussed the opportunities and challenges of using online technology and financial intelligence in combating human trafficking.

DSC01837.jpgOn March 22nd, Latonero led a discussion for California Attorney General Kamala Harris’s Human Trafficking Work Group. Other members of the group included Fred Wolens, Facebook Public Policy Manager, Bill Harmon, Associate General Counsel for the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit, and Julie Cordua, Executive Director of the Demi & Ashton Foundation (DNA). The convening, hosted in San Francisco by the Futures Without Violence organization, was an effort to build on the research of the 2007 “Human Trafficking in California” report by the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery Task Force. Latonero will attend the next meeting of the Human Trafficking Work Group on May 16 in Los Angeles.

In Los Angeles in May, Latonero will attend a follow-up meeting for the California Attorney General’s Human Trafficking Work Group. On May 9-10, he will meet in San Francisco with the National Research Council committee he was appointed to earlier this year.

This blog was contributed by Trini Rios.