Community Engagement as Part of Your Human Trafficking Response

Jane Anderson brings her expertise in prosecuting domestic violence, sexual violence, and human trafficking to her role as an Attorney Advisor with AEquitas. Prior to joining AEquitas, Jane served as a prosecutor in Miami, Florida where she tried many of the state's first human trafficking cases. In her role as a founding member of the Human Trafficking Unit, Jane developed policies to better identify and provide necessary services to trafficking victims, while ensuring offender accountability through the use of digital evidence and creative charging decisions. Jane also served as a supervisor in the Domestic Violence Unit, where she trained new attorneys and oversaw the prosecution of domestic violence, stalking, and violations of protection orders. Throughout her career, Jane prosecuted felony-level crimes of all types, including homicide, kidnapping, and sexual assault. Currently, Jane’s responsibilities include serving as a member of the IACP technical assistance team and as ICF’s “field coach” for human trafficking prosecutors around the U.S. Jane graduated cum laude from American University, Washington College of Law and is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Sabrina Fernandez is a Program Manager at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), overseeing multiple law enforcement training and technical assistance initiatives in topic areas such as officer safety and wellness, recruitment and retention, anti-human trafficking, and innovative online training. Sabrina has been with the IACP since 2010, addressing policy and operational challenges facing law enforcement and developing tools and resources to assist law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting criminal activity, preventing and responding to victimization, and increasing community safety. Prior to the IACP, Sabrina worked at the University of Tennessee Law Enforcement Innovation Center and Tennessee Regional Community Policing Institute, the University of Tennessee's Social Work Office of Research and Public Service, and the Baltimore Office of Homeless Services, after spending four years at the beginning of her career as a social worker and social policy advocate. Sabrina has a Master of Arts in Public Policy from The Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, English and French from Drury University. She can be reached at fernandez@theiacp.org. 

Joy Friedman is a survivor of sexual exploitation and an invaluable resource for women and girls within the anti-sex trafficking movement. Her exploitation began as a teenager and ended after being in the Life for 22 years. Joy successfully completed a program for sexually exploited women, and after two years of sobriety was hired at Breaking Free, a Minnesota organization that empowers survivors through housing and service provision, programming, and advocacy. At Breaking Free, Joy co-coordinated and conducted training at one of the first Offender Prostitution Programs in the country. Joy has also conducted street outreach to vulnerable and sexually exploited women and has trained other professionals in conducting outreach and providing trauma-informed responses. She has trained and provided expert consultations to a wide variety of law enforcement agencies investigating sex trafficking cases and other stakeholders on the dynamics of sexual exploitation. Committed to empowering survivors in any way she can, Joy started her own consulting business, through which she continues training and advising anti-sex trafficking stakeholders throughout the country.

Natasha Haunsperger has been a Portland Police Officer for sixteen years and in her current position as a Community Engagement Lead, she has been working on addressing complex criminal justice-related issues with immigrant and refugee communities in the Portland Metro area. Officer Haunsperger is currently working on developing holistic and innovative platforms for onboarding immigrants, refugees, communities of color, and other vulnerable and historically marginalized communities in the process of justice reforms. Officer Haunsperger also co-produced a documentary film on foreign-born labor trafficking, "Reclaiming Their Lives," and is actively working on raising public awareness about trafficking trends in the Pacific Northwest. Officer Haunsperger is committed to developing a training curriculum for first responders and community-based stakeholders, focusing on early detection and identification of labor trafficking activities and victims’ identification and rescue. In addition, she engages as an advocate with groups focused on issues of gender, socio-economic justice, and civil and human rights for justice-impacted women, with a particular focus on uplifting the voices of women in the areas of domestic and international security, conflict resolution, and peace-building processes.

JR Ujifusa has been working on human trafficking crimes and issues for the last 12 years and is also a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the district of Oregon focusing on federal human trafficking crimes. He is the Senior deputy and supervisor of the Multnomah County District Attorney's Drug and Property unit and Human Trafficking Team which oversees the Prostitution Coordination Team, the Sex Buyers Accountability and Diversion Program, First Offender Program, Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Law Enforcement group, National Sex Trafficking Law Enforcement List Serve, and is the primary prosecutor for all felony prostitution and human trafficking cases within Multnomah County. JR has trained, presented and has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional human trafficking conferences and trainings. He is a member of the Multnomah County and State of Oregon Human Trafficking Task Forces as well as the U. S. Attorney’s Oregon Foreign Born Task Force. JR serves as the chair of the National Advisory Committee on the Sex Trafficking of Children and Youth in the United States. He co-chairs the Association of Prosecuting Attorney’s Human Trafficking Advisory Committee and the Oregon DOJ Trafficking Intervention Advisory Committee. He has been a Deputy District Attorney since 2005 and has also prosecuted drug crimes, felony property crimes, violent crimes, sexual assaults, domestic violence related crimes, gang related crimes and homicides.