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Siddharth Kara, author of “Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery,” will share his latest research on modern slavery, including documentation of 1,300 cases in 30 countries, when he delivers Gonzaga University’s Presidential Speaker Series lecture at 7 p.m., Tuesday, April 1 in the McCarthey Athletic Center.
Kara advises the United Nations, the United States and governments worldwide on anti-trafficking policy and law.
“Mr. Kara pulls back the drape that covers the misery and horror experienced by millions on the earth, highlighting real problems associated with how goods and services are produced and consumed,” said GU President Thayne McCulloh in a press release. “Globalization and technology have had a dramatic impact on the phenomena of human trafficking. Mr. Kara works to help us see and understand those living at the margins, and demonstrates how we can begin to tackle even entrenched, complex problems through research and engagement.”
Kara’s book was the co-winner of the 2010 Frederick Douglass Award at Yale University for the best non-fiction title on slavery. Being developed as a feature film, it’s the first book on modern forms of slavery to win the respected prize. “Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia” (2012), Kara’s second book, offers the first comprehensive focus on the deeply entrenched and wholly unjust system of debt bondage in South Asia. Based on 11 years of research in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, Kara delves into an ancient and evolving form of slavery that ensnares roughly six out of every 10 slaves in the world and generates profits that topped $17.6 billion in 2011.
According to a press release, Kara (pronounced kaw-ruh) worked as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch in New York, and ran his own finance and consulting firm for several years before studying sex trafficking, which he had first encountered in a 1995 visit to a Bosnian refugee camp. Beginning in 2000, Kara’s global journey included witnessing firsthand the sale of humans into slavery, and confronting some of those who trafficked and exploited them.
Tickets for his lecture range from $7-$15 through TicketsWest.
Tracy Simmons is an award-winning journalist specializing in religion reporting and digital entrepreneurship. In her approximate 20 years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas, Connecticut and Washington. She is the executive director of SpokaneFāVS.com, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, Washington. She also writes for The Spokesman-Review and national publications. She is a Scholarly Assistant Professor of Journalism at Washington State University.
