Jodi Henderson

Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Modern Slavery

Jodi is a leading authority in the fight against human trafficking and modern slavery. As the founding Editor in Chief of the Journal of Modern Slavery, Jodi has been instrumental in advancing the discourse and research on these critical issues. In her role as Executive Director of SlaveFree Today, Jodi has spearheaded numerous initiatives aimed at combating modern slavery and supporting survivors.

With extensive experience in both academia and advocacy, Jodi has participated in high-profile symposia and forums worldwide, including those held in The Hague and at the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights. Her expertise and insights have made significant contributions to global conversations on human rights and ethical practices.

In addition to her editorial and directorial roles, she co-edited the influential book Slavery and Its Consequences, further establishing her commitment to illuminating the complexities and ramifications of modern slavery. Through her ongoing work, Jodi continues to drive meaningful change and inspire action toward a more just and equitable world.

Dr. Aidan McQuade

Aidan McQuade is an independent consultant in human rights and ethical leadership. He was Director of Anti-Slavery International from 2006 to 2017. Prior to that he worked extensively in development and humanitarian response for 13 years, including 5 years leading Oxfam GB’s humanitarian operations in response to the brutal civil war in Angola.

He is a experienced researcher with a PhD on the subject of ethics in professional practice. He is also an acknowledged expert on slavery and forced labour, with an honorary OBE for his work on elimination of modern slavery. His recent work has included advising OSCE in Albania on child labour and trafficking, developing guidance on the 2014 Forced Labour Protocol for the International Trade Union Confederation, engagement with international businesses on establishing anti-slavery policies and practices in cocoa and garment supply chains, work that has exposed the caste and gender aspects of modern slavery, and innovative work, particularly in Myanmar and Bangladesh, on slavery as a development and humanitarian issue. His is a member of the advisory group to the U.K. parliament on eliminating modern slavery from the parliament’s supply chain, and he works extensively as an expert witness.

He is the author of a novel, The Undiscovered Country, about an investigation of murder during the Irish war of independence in 1920, and his second book, Ethical Leadership: moral decision-making under pressure, is due in 2022 from De Gruyter.

Dr. Monti Narayan Datta

Dr. Monti Narayan Datta is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Richmond where he teaches classes on human rights, global governance, research methods, and a yearlong intensive course on modern day slavery. He is also a consultant with the Walk Free Global Slavery Index. With Dr. Kevin Bales, Monti has developed measures of the prevalence of contemporary slavery and its risk factors, used to compile the Index.

Monti is an expert in research methods, international relations theory, public opinion, human rights, and modern day slavery. In addition to Walk Free, he has partnered on anti-slavery projects with Free the Slaves and Chab Dai in addition to anti-poverty programs in Richmond, Virginia, where he resides.

Monti’s work has appeared in Human Rights Quarterly, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, International Studies Perspectives, PS: Political Science & Politics, and Political Science Quarterly. He is the author of Anti-Americanism and the Rise of World Public Opinion: Consequences for the U.S. National Interest, forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. He is working on several academic articles on modern day slavery with Kevin Bales in addition to a book-length project on the subject.

Monti holds a PhD in political science from the University of California at Davis, a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University, and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. Carter F. Smith

Dr. Carter F. Smith is a Professor of Criminal Justice in the Department of Criminal Justice Administration at Middle Tennesee State University. During his more than twenty-two year career with the United States Army, Dr. Smith served as Criminal Intelligence & Anti-Terrorism Program Manager, Team Chief of the Gang Suppression Team, Detachment Sergeant, and Special Agent-in-Charge for the US Army Criminal Investigations Command (CID).

Dr. Smith is a member of the graduate faculty at Middle Tennessee State University; and a founding board member of the Tennessee Gang Investigators Association. A recipient of the Frederic Milton Thrasher Award of the National Gang Crime Research Center, Dr. Smith’s research and investigative interests include the effect of military-trained gang members on the civilian community, the use of technology by gang members, and the intersection of criminal street gangs, organized crime, and terrorism.

Dr. Smith received his Ph.D from Northcentral University. He received a Juris Doctorate from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale, and holds a Bachelor’s degree from Austin Peay State University. The recipient of numerous Army Commendation and Meritorious Service Medals, he was also designated as a CID Command Special Agent of the Year. Dr. Smith is a member of Phi Alpha Delta (Law Fraternity), the Fraternal Order of Police, and the CID Special Agent’s Association.

Benjamin Thomas Greer, J.D.

Benjamin Greer is a CalOES Senior Instructor, California Specialized Training Institute (CSTI), in the Homeland Security/Human Trafficking Division. His role at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is as a Subject Matter Expert in the field of human trafficking and child sexual exploitation; specifically instructing and developing human trafficking courses for law enforcing and emergency personnel. His primary tasks include creating multiple courses related to human trafficking and child sexual exploitation for OES’s California Specialized Training Institute (CSTI),researching and course development of the nexus between terrorist financing and human trafficking, working with the State Threat Assessment Center, Joint Terrorism Task Forces and Fusion Centers on human trafficking intelligence products, integrating human trafficking intelligence into the Terrorism Liaison Officer training program, and providing issue directed briefings on the current state of human trafficking and its nexus to terrorism in California. Before joining Cal OES, Mr. Greer served as a Special Deputy Attorney General with the California Department of Justice – Office of the Attorney General. There he lead a team of attorneys and non-attorneys in a comprehensive report for the California Attorney General entitled, “The State of Human Trafficking in California 2012.” He has published numerous American Law Review and International Journal articles and have presented/lectured in 9 counties. He is a federally recognized human trafficking training expert by the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC – TTAC) Training & Technical Assistance Center and Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA – NTAC) Training and Technical Assistance Center; helped California draft and negotiate Memorandum of Understandings (MOU) with the Mexican Government, draft and lobby anti-trafficking legislation (both domestically and internationally) and plays a prominent role as Contributing/Advisory Board member on two International Peer Reviewed Anti-Trafficking Journals.

He has previously presented and published extensively on human trafficking. Some of his articles include What is the Value of Slave Labor?: Why Fair Market Value Should Not be the Benchmark for Criminal Restitution for Victims of Human Trafficking, published in the Northern Illinois University Law Review. He presented this article at The Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights at University College Cork, Ireland. He has also presented Crime Shouldn’t Pay: How California Should Restructure Its Asset Forfeiture Laws to Discourage All Forms of Human Trafficking and Hold Traffickers More Financially Accountable at the 2012 Conference – Policing and European Studies at the University of Abertay-Dundee in Scotland. He has most recently present on California’s Supply Chain Transparency laws at HEC Paris’ 3rd Annual Global Conference on Transparency Research.

Roger-Claude Liwanga

Roger-Claude Liwanga is a Visiting Scholar with Boston University’s African Studies Center. He is a legal consultant for international non-governmental organizations. He is also the Founder of Promote Congo, dedicated to promoting human rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by fundraising and providing microloans to underserved communities and carrying out human rights education.

Last year, Mr. Liwanga worked as a continuing legal education expert for the American Bar Association – Rule of Law Initiative where he designed training modules and trained lawyers and law professors in Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), to reinforce their capacity to offer Continuing Legal Education (CLE) to legal professionals. He also worked for The Carter Center in different capacities, including as a legal consultant, where developed a training module to train the Congolese magistrates on the protection of children against trafficking for economic exploitation in the mines. Mr. Liwanga also served as an international election observer for the Carter Center’s Election Observation Mission in Guinea-Conakry and Liberia.

Since 2012, Mr. Liwanga has been invited as a guest lecturer for a human trafficking course at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He also has numerous publications on human rights issues, which include drafting the majority of the DRC’s Bill on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders which was approved by the DRC Government and is pending for adoption at the Congolese Parliament. Mr. Liwanga earned his LL.M in Human Rights Law from the University of Cape Town (South Africa) and his Licence en Droit (License in Law) from Université Protestante au Congo (DRC).

Marcel van der Watt

Marcel is a lecturer and researcher at the University of South Africa’s (UNISA) Department of Police Practice. Before joining UNISA, Marcel was a member of the South African Police Service (SAPS) where he worked as hostage negotiator and investigator attached to the Hawks (DPCI) and Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) Unit. It was in his role as police official during 2002 when he first came across the trafficking of women and girls in the sex trade. Marcel gained international recognition for his work in counter human trafficking and received numerous awards and commendations for the investigation of crime including a position in the YPIA Top 35 under 35 Africans for 2014.

He provides assistance in on-going investigations and intelligence-gathering activities and also participates on provincial and national human trafficking task teams in South Africa. His roles include that of Research Director for the Global Resources Epicentre against Human Trafficking (GREAT), a Canadian based NPO, Case Manager for the National Freedom Network (NFN) and expert witness on issues related to control methods, modus operandi and sentencing considerations in human trafficking cases. He has published and presented his work on local and international platforms and recently completed a PhD (Criminal Justice) on human trafficking from a complex-systems perspective.

Brad K. Blitz, Ph.D.

Brad Blitz received his Ph.D. from Stanford University and is a Professor of International Politics and Policy at University College London Institute of Education, and Head of the Department of Education, Practice and Society. Until June 2019 was Director of the British Academy/DFID Programme on Modern Slavery. His research focuses on displacement, governance and human rights.

A former Jean Monnet Chair he is widely regarded as a leading expert on refugees and stateless persons, migration, human rights and international politics. He has acted as an advisor and consultant to UNDP, UNICEF, the World Bank, OSCE, Council of Europe, DFID, and several NGOs. He is also a frequent contributor on matters of migration, refugees, humanitarian assistance and human rights and has appeared on British and American television and radio including BBC News, Sky News, National Public Radio, as well as in print media.

Publications include Statelessness in the European Union: Displaced, Undocumented and Unwanted, Cambridge University Press, 2011; and Statelessness and Citizenship: A Comparative Study on the Benefits of Nationality, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011. He is also the author of Migration and Freedom: Mobility, Citizenship, and Exclusion, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2014; reissued in 2016 which was nominated for three awards. He recently acted as Principal Investigator for the ESRC-DFID project EVI-MED on refugee reception systems in the Mediterranean and EU project INFORM on access to legal and procedural information for asylum-seekers. He is also Co-Investigator on a £15 million ‘hub’ on Gender, Justice and Security, funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF); and Co-Investigator of a new GCRF Cluster project, Life After Deportation, a study of refused and current asylum-seekers returned to Mexico and Guatemala from the USA.

Geraldine Ramos Bjällerstedt

Geraldine is an attorney and development specialist with over 15 years of experience in human rights, rule of law and security sector reform. She has worked in several international contexts including humanitarian emergencies, conflict and post-conflict in Southeast Europe, East Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Researching, analyzing, and reporting on violence against women and girls, specifically sexual-based violence and human trafficking, have figured prominently in her work.

Geraldine has provided technical expertise on diverse initiatives to end violence against women and girls with various agencies, such as Chemonics Internat’l/USAID Office of Women in Development, Council for Baltic Sea States, OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, and UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women.

Former operational field assignments include the OSCE Spillover Monitor Mission to Skopje, American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative, Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.Geraldine studied at Boston University and holds a Juris Doctor degree from City University of New York School of Law. She is fluent in English and Spanish, and proficient in French. She is currently an independent consultant based in Sweden with her family.