A Conversation About Human Trafficking
Thursday, October 4, 2018 • 1-2pm • Katie Murphy Amphitheatre • Pomerantz Center
FIT’s Campus Anti-Violence Education Group hosts a session on human trafficking, a human rights issue that impacts a number of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals including Goal No.5: Gender Equality, and Goal No. 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth. Featured panelists will provide an overview of what is happening with forced labor, sex trafficking, and related issues and how they intersect with the industries related to FIT majors. Thanks to the student leaders from FIT’s student organization, UNICEF, for their assistance with this program.
This event is open to the public based on panel membership.
About Our Panelists
Dr. Lucy Collins is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She teaches courses in ethics and fashion theory. Professor Collins' research interests are related to existentialism and consumerism as well as the intersection between fashion, ethics, and feminism. She has written on fashion for The Wall Street Journal, Fashion Projects, Fashion Theory, and The Philosopher's Magazine among others. She has a chapter on teaching ethics for fashion students in the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Fashion Studies.
Ruchira Gupta is a feminist campaigner, writer, visiting professor at New York University and founder of Indian anti-sex trafficking organizations, Apne Aap Women Worldwide , and Apne Aap, USA. In Apne App, she has helped more than 20,000 girls, women, and their family members exit prostitution systems. Her dream is to create a world in which no human being is bought or sold. She holds an MA in English Literature. For her complete biography, visit apneaap.org . (Photo of Ruchira Gupta provided by images.dawn.com)
Elizabeth Pulos is an Associate Manager of Social Compliance at Macy’s, where she focuses on human rights and sustainability in supply chains. Prior to Macy’s, she was Senior Manager of Compliance Administration at Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP), an NGO that promotes ethical manufacturing through social compliance auditing, education and certification. Elizabeth has a BS in International Trade and Marketing from FIT, and is a master’s candidate at Glasgow Caledonian New York College, where she studies cross-sectoral approaches to profitable sustainability in the fashion industry.
Cynthia Soohoo is the Co-Director of the Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic at CUNY Law School. She is in expert on women’s human rights, the human rights of youth in conflict with the law, and human rights advocacy in the United States. She supervises the clinic’s work on reproductive rights and health, trafficking, and youth in the adult criminal justice system. She has worked with trafficking victims in the U.S. to vacate criminal convictions for prostitution and to support advocacy and legislation to ensure that people who have been trafficked are not criminalized for acts they were forced to engage in.
(Photo of Cynthia Soohoo provided by law.cuny.edu)