Members of the Public-Private Partnership Advisory Council to End Human Trafficking were appointed on December 5, 2019 and January 23, 2020, and served until September 30, 2020, when the Council was terminated pursuant to the terms of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2017 (Pub. L. 115-393).
Council Co-Chairs
Tim Ballard (Utah)
Tim Ballard is the Founder of Operation Underground Railroad, a nonprofit that fights against child sex trafficking. He is also the CEO of The Nazarene Fund which seeks to save oppressed religious minorities in the Middle East. Ballard spent over a decade working as a Special Agent for the Department of Homeland Security where he was deployed as an undercover operative. He has worked every type of case imaginable in the fight to dismantle child trafficking rings. He has worked undercover in the United States and in multiple foreign countries to infiltrate child trafficking organizations.
Dr. Sandra Morgan (California)
Dr. Sandra Morgan, an educator and nurse, is recognized globally for her expertise in combating human trafficking and working to end violence against women. Dr. Morgan’s experience serving exploited women, men, and children includes direct care as a pediatric nurse, a volunteer with Doctors of the World (Athens, Greece) and as a past Administrator of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force (OCHTTF). She serves the Orange County CSEC (Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children) Steering Committee partnering with Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice. She is the Director of Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice.
Council Members
Karen Cheeks-Lomax (New York)
Karen Cheeks-Lomax is CEO of My Sisters’ Place and has led the agency since 2005. She served as Executive Director and General Counsel before becoming CEO. Karen has a long and rich history in providing legal services for battered women including her ten years as Director of General Litigation at Harlem Legal Services in New York City. She worked closely with the African American Task Force on Violence against Women which was co-founded by Harlem Legal Services. Prior to her work in Harlem, she served as an Assistant General Counsel with the Massachusetts Department of Social Services and was an Assistant Attorney General in the Torts Division for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Bruce Deel (Georgia)
Bruce founded City of Refuge in 1997 with a desire to bring light, hope and transformation to one of Atlanta’s most difficult neighborhoods. Now, 22 years later, City of Refuge provides housing, medical, dental and vision care, mental health services, childcare, vocational training and placement programs and a host of other services to those marginalized in Atlanta. The organization serves the homeless, victims of domestic violence and those who have survived sex trafficking and exploitation, along with those living in poverty in zip code 30314.
Diana Mao (California)
Diana is President of Nomi Network and an abolitionist whose mission is to completely eradicate human trafficking in her lifetime. A leader in the global movement to abolish slavery, she co-founded Nomi Network, a non-profit organization that provides workforce development, training, job opportunities, and career pathways for survivors and women at risk of human trafficking in Asia and the US, operating nine training centers. The organization works closely with international corporations to create jobs for survivors and access to ethical supply chains for consumers.
Jennifer Jensen (California)
Jennifer Jensen is the Founder and Executive Director of Global Family Care Network. She leads Global Family’s work in 9 countries with over 300 team members. Global Family’s initiative, the Daughter Project, is a comprehensive and evidence-based effort towards the prevention, intervention, and restoration of young victims of human trafficking and exploitation. She has lived and worked in five countries, spending time in many others, to develop and launch locally imagined, asset based and sustainable efforts to protect children and preserve families in at risk communities around the world. Through her efforts, almost 200,000 children have been protected through community-based clubs and over 1500 cared for in trauma shelters, restoring the vast majority with their families. She has led the development of an education for prevention platform in the USA, PreSEHT.com, the creation of a girls’ empowerment curriculum now translated into six languages, and oversees a model shelter for underage victims of sexual exploitation in Kern County, California.
Kevin Malone (Nevada)
Kevin Malone is the President of the Board and Co-Founder with Geoff Rogers of the United States Institute Against Human Trafficking (USIAHT), a ministry dedicated and committed to ending the atrocity of sex trafficking of children in our own American cities, communities, and neighborhoods. They opened the first and only trafficked boy’s safe home in America. Retired from Major League Baseball in 2001 after a 17-year career that included being General Manager of the Montreal Expos, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Assistant General Manager of the Baltimore Orioles, Kevin is ever the competitor who has always focused on winning through his leadership and team building skill.
Kristin Weis (Oklahoma)
Since 2004, Kristin Weis and her husband Jason Weis have been pioneers in the fight against child sex trafficking and CSEC, along with their two children Joshua 18 years old and Hannah 16 years old. Kristin and Jason graduated Victory Bible College in 2008 with a certification in Children’s Outreach Ministry. Following graduation, Kristin served as a National Director for a grassroots anti-trafficking organization until her position ended. January 2013, Kristin and Jason Co-founded The Demand Project with the mission of eradicating child sex trafficking, online enticement and child abuse imagery, through prevention, prosecution, rescue and restoration. Kristin is the Co-Founder and CEO for their non-profit and founded Mount Arukah, The Demand Project’s residential campuses for underage girls 11-17 years of age. Kristin is a Private Investigator, State and Local Victim Crisis Advocate, Author of Awaken human trafficking training, VAST (Victim Advocate Support Team) and Traffick Stop, Co-developer of Journey to Freedom non-residential and residential programs, Empower Assembly for children and the Alternative2Prison Program.
Esta Soler (California)
Esta Soler is the President of Futures Without Violence and was a driving force behind passage of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994—the nation’s first comprehensive federal response to the violence that plagues families and communities. Congress reauthorized and expanded the law in 2000, 2005, and 2013. Now, she is committed to passage of the International Violence Against Women Act to prevent gender-based violence on a global scale.
Linda Smith (Washington)
Linda Smith is a leader in the global movement to end sex trafficking of women and children. She represented Washington State’s Third Congressional District in the U.S. Congress from 1995-1999. She founded Shared Hope International to support shelter and service creation for sex trafficking survivors, provide training and deepen research for action and solutions.. By partnering with local organizations, Shared Hope provides restorative care, shelter, education and job skills training through the Women’s Investment Network (WIN). Linda founded the War Against Trafficking Alliance in 2001, engaging regional efforts to strengthen legislation and enforcement against sex trafficking around the world. Linda began a campaign to focus on demand as a primary effort to end sex trafficking by conducting field research, producing reports and documentaries to expose the realities and testifying before Congress in support of improved laws. After successful advocacy resulted in federal law changes targeting anti-demand efforts, Linda launched an initiative to annually assess and grade every state’s laws as they relate to or impact domestic minor sex trafficking, resulting in state by state efforts across the nation to raise the grade.
Teresa Davison (Iowa)
Teresa fights against human trafficking as Iowa’s first Anti-Human Trafficking Coordinator in a hospital, board member of the Iowa Network Against Human Trafficking, and co-founder of Chains Interrupted, a non-profit dedicated to fight human trafficking in Eastern Iowa and beyond. Teresa Davidson’s passion to fight human trafficking began on a mission trip to Africa where she saw children being victimized by this crime. She has since led/served on mission trips to India, Nepal, Thailand, Burma the US and Guatemala to fight human trafficking. As a nurse practitioner, she has developed education, guidelines and protocols for health care professionals. Teresa has assisted hundreds of survivors within her own healthcare institution and community, and has trained health care professionals across the nation and world on research-based, best practice.