Human Trafficking is Modern Day Slavery: Greater New Orleans, United States, and Global Manifestations

Saturday, December 8, 2012
Listen to the recorded presentation HERE

Featuring:

Lindsey Boettinger

Case Manager for the Catholic Charities Refugee Services Program, and an Outreach Specialist for the Rescue and Restore Human Trafficking Program

and

Sue Weishar

Migration Specialist, Jesuit Social Research Institute of Loyola University

Lindsey Boettinger has worked with the refugee population from various countries since she lived in Cairo, Egypt in 2006.  After returning to the United States in 2007, she has worked in differing capacities with survivors of foreign conflict, natural and man-made disasters, and survivors of human trafficking in Washington, DC, Silver Spring, MD,  and New Orleans, LA.  She is a member of FreeNola and the New Orleans Human Trafficking Working Group, and is dedicated to spreading public awareness about human trafficking in order to engage the community on ways to identify and prevent it. 

Lindsey led discussion about disturbing current trends in human trafficking with the assistance of Sue Weishar who is currently a Migration Specialist/Fellow with the Jesuit Social Research Institute. 

Sue previously spent fourteen years as Director of Immigration and Refugee Services with Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans (1991-2005) and earlier worked as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Samoa and as a teacher in Guatemala. Most recently, in the years since Katrina, she served as project manager for the Louisiana Refugee Services Collaborative to implement a new state-wide refugee services collaborative, administrator for the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA), Gulf Coast Coordinator for the Mississippi Center for Nonprofits, and Director of Development for UNITY of Greater New Orleans.

Also, Sue and programs which she directed have been honored by Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops/Migration and Refugee Services (for Alternatives to Detention), the National Crime Prevention Council (for the Asian Youth Services Program), and the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement (for the Immigrant Domestic Violence Services Program).