The Program on Human Rights concluded its ninth and final installment of the Sanela Diana Jenkins International Speakers Series on March 13 with presentations with Dr. Mohammed Mattar, executive director of the Protection Project and professor at Johns Hopkins University and Professor Alison Brysk, chair of Global Governance, Global and International Studies at UC Santa Barbara.

Dr. Mattar noted that while effective anti-trafficking laws depend on law enforcement and survivor protection, the key intellectual and ethical rationale of such laws is the concept of the exploitation of vulnerable people in vulnerable circumstances. Dr. Mattar explained the legal distinction between “human trafficking” and “slavery,” emphasizing that the latter is based on twin ideas of human beings as commodities to be bought and sold, as well as the exercise of ownership of one person over another. “There is no doubt that human trafficking is a degrading and severe violation of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms, but it is unnecessary to label human trafficking as slavery because to do so we would need to identify the exercise of powers attached to the right of ownership,” Mattar said.

Among the challenges for a more effective anti-trafficking effort, Dr. Mattar listed the need to hold corporations responsible for their acts, to provide access to justice that allows for victim compensation, the engagement of civil society, and criminal enforcement and accountability under existing national and international law.

Professor Brysk explained that globalization has produced pernicious side effects.  The acceleration of migration, especially of women, increases the incidence of gender violence and the commodification of “disposable people.” All these factors enable the increase of human trafficking. Brysk observed that international recognition of trafficking as a form of contemporary slavery has been helpful in influencing policy change. “There is a slavery spectrum,” Brysk said. “We need to work to guarantee physical integrity of people, migration rights and children’s rights.”

She also noted that the focus on sex slavery has high costs because it is based on “protection and not empowerment,” and “rescue over rights.” The individualistic emphasis and sexual focus of anti-trafficking efforts fails to recognize many forms of exploitative globalized labor. Women and children are put in dangerous and debilitating non-sexual jobs. There are also many forms of sexual and gender violence in other forms of exploitative globalized labor, such as in sweatshops.

Together, the speakers in the final session of the Program on Human Rights speaker series made a strong plea for more sophisticated understanding of the dynamics of human trafficking in the 21^st century. Sustained research that accounts for contemporary conditions, they told the Stanford audience, is needed to give policy makers and legislators the information and tools they need to combat the alarming global acceleration of human trafficking.

On March 6, Justin Dillon, musician, film director and consultant to the State Department Office to combat human trafficking, spoke about open source activism and the work of slaveryfootprint.org to build a world free of slaves. Mr. Dillon presented at the eighth installment of the Program on Human Rights Sanela Diana Jenkins International Speakers Series at Stanford’s Bechtel Center.

Mr. Dillon recounted how he was deeply moved and decided to take action against trafficking after he and his band, Tremolo, toured Russia in the 90s and came across scores of young women lured abroad with the promise of a better life and bogus job offers. “As a musician, in the middle of chaos, I want to bring order,” he explained. “When I returned, I wanted people to feel what I feel,” Mr. Dillon added. He explained that the roots of his music, soul and jazz, are also products of slavery and the cry for recognition and help. He understood that it was natural to use music against modern day slavery.

Mr. Dillon explained that his first efforts were to help raise awareness of the problem and help organizations in the US that were addressing the issue of human trafficking. He hosted benefit concerts and came with the idea of a documentary that combined both critically acclaimed artists and social luminaries. “Although I am not a celebrity, I was impressed by the people that agreed to talk to me,” Mr. Dillon said. He also advised students “don’t ask for permission to change the world.” The result of this work, the film Call+ Response, was sold out in the theaters and widely acclaimed.

Explaining that open source activism is a thought and a value, Mr. Dillon suggested that organizations working against trafficking need to think more innovatively. They can learn from the environmental platform and adapt it to fight slavery. He reminded the audience that businesses spend a lot of money trying to work out what consumers want and that we live in a historically important time when consumers can tell companies what they want: a world free of slaves.

Steve Hilton, senior advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron, will join Stanford as a visiting scholar at the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Hilton, who will also be a visiting fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, will arrive in May and spend his year on campus teaching, researching and writing.

“We look forward to having Steve Hilton in residence at FSI starting later this spring,” said Coit Blacker, FSI’s director. “Lively and engaging, Steve is certain to bring a fresh perspective to many of the issues and challenges that are of ongoing concern to our faculty, fellows and students.”

As Cameron’s top advisor, Hilton’s primary responsibility is the development and implementation of domestic policy. He specializes in the promotion of enterprise and economic growth, public service reform, family policy, decentralization, and government transparency and accountability.

Hilton will focus on innovation in government, public services and communities around the world while at Stanford. He will work with a wide range of centers and organizations across the university, including FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and The Europe Center; the Graduate School of Business' Center for Social Innovation; the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society; and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.

"I'm delighted to be joining the academic community at Stanford and greatly look forward to an exhilarating and productive year,” Hilton said. “It will be a huge pleasure to be able to focus on our most pressing social and governmental challenges."

Before Cameron’s election as prime minister in 2010, Hilton served as his chief strategist and developed the ideas associated with the modernization of the British Conservative Party.

Hilton previously ran Good Business, a corporate responsibility consulting firm, and is the author of Good Business: Your World Needs You. The book makes the case for businesses to play a more direct and active role in advancing social progress.