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Sharing Best Practices to Prevent and Protect the Victims
and to Punish the Traffickers
Thursday, November 20, 2003
10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
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Ann Jordan
Director of the Initiative Against Trafficking in Persons
International Human Rights Law Group (IHRLG) 
  

Ann Jordan is director of the Initiative Against Trafficking in Persons (IATP) at the International Human Rights Law Group. She directs and implements a project to bring a human rights perspective to legal and social responses to the international problem of human trafficking. IATP works with immigrant rights, women’s rights, and other NGOs in the United States, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Colombia, Nigeria, Bosnia, Cambodia, Thailand, Russia, the Ukraine and elsewhere on legal reform, research, training, and advocacy. She is presently working with NGOs in Latin America and West Africa on the development of a network and a regional strategy to coordinate activities and advocate for governments to adopt a human rights-based approach to addressing the problem.

Ms. Jordan was deeply involved in the development of the new US trafficking law and is presently monitoring its implementation. She organized the Freedom Network (USA) to Empower Trafficked and Enslaved Persons, the premier US network whose members provide social, mental health and legal assistance to trafficked persons, conduct training through the Freedom Network Training Institute and engage in advocacy for the rights of trafficked persons.

She also formed the Human Rights Caucus of anti-trafficking and human rights organizations from all regions of the world to advocate for a human rights framework during the negotiations for the UN Trafficking Protocol that was adopted in 2000. She has written the Annotated Guide to the Complete UN Trafficking Protocol, which is available in English, German and Spanish.

She was also a member of the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice in the International Criminal Court and worked with the Caucus to ensure that gender-based crimes and gender balance were successfully included in the new UN International Criminal Court. She was also instrumental in including human trafficking as a form of slavery in the treaty.

Prior to joining the Law Group, Ms. Jordan was involved for eight years in a network of fourteen women’s rights NGOs in Hong Kong advocating for the rights of women in Hong Kong. She was also a Fulbright Scholar in the law faculties of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China, and the City University of Hong Kong, as well as a law professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Ms. Jordan earned her law and undergraduate degrees at Columbia University.