Understanding and Responding to Family-Facilitated Human Trafficking

Alicia Ley wears many hats within the anti-trafficking sector, where she has worked for the last decade. She currently is the Fellowship Program Manager at Survivor Alliance, a global organization dedicated to equipping and empowering survivors to be leaders in the anti-trafficking movement. There she provides leadership training to survivors and is the administrator of their Fellowship programs. This employment pathway enhances survivor representation in the anti-trafficking sector while equipping organizations to create a trauma-informed and inclusive workplace. Alicia also manages and leads the Survivor Advisory Council for Collaborative to End Human Trafficking in Ohio where she provides support, empowerment, and training to other survivors as she connects them to consultation opportunities and survivor-led projects. Alicia has spent the last decade advocating and building holistic, trauma-applied spaces to support survivors as they journey toward becoming their whole healthy selves. It is these face-to-face relationships that fuel her fiery passion to address systemic injustices and bring survivors and allies together in the fight for economic equity and meaningful survivor inclusion within the global anti-trafficking movement.

Chris Cuestas holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Administration of Justice from the University of Arizona. Chris has been educating communities, law enforcement, schools, and tribal entities for 42 years. He is a recognized “sole source” trainer because of his level of expertise and years of field experience. In 2009 and 2010, Chris’ gang reduction strategy received national best practice recognition for gang reduction in tribal lands. The Gang Reduction through Intervention Prevention and Suppression (G.R.I.P.S.) strategy has shown significant success in tribal communities seeking to impact this developing sub-culture. Chris served as the Lead Detective for the cross-pollinated drug, gang, and guns federal Hardcore Interdiction Team representing the Tucson Police Department from 1990 to 1996. Chris currently consults on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women/Persons (MMIW/MMIP) cases on behalf of tribal communities and families.

Mimi Zhuravitsky is a Trial Attorney in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit (HTPU) where she focuses primarily on forced labor and adult sex trafficking cases based on coercion. Recently, Mimi secured a labor trafficking conviction at trial in North Carolina in United States v. Luong, a case in which a North Carolina nail salon owner compelled a victim’s labor for almost two years by physically, emotionally, and verbally punishing the victim, as well as employing a debt scheme. Mimi also secured a 35-year plea in Louisiana in United States v. Fulton, a case in which the defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit forced labor of three minors and to transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. From 2016 to 2019, Fulton used violence, sexual abuse, withholding of food, degradation, and intimidation to coerce multiple minors, who were his stepchildren, to work his brownie baking business for his profit. Prior to working at HTPU, Mimi worked as an Assistant State’s Attorney for Baltimore City in their Special Victims Unit. There, she focused primarily on felony child abuse, sex offense, and domestic violence cases. She still lives in Baltimore with her family and family zoo.

Erin Marsh recently joined the International Association of Chiefs of Police in October 2023 as a Project Manager for multiple antihuman trafficking projects, including TraffickSTOP and the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Program for Enhanced Collaborative Model Human Trafficking Task Forces. Prior to joining IACP, Ms. Marsh worked as a Research and Policy Manager at Polaris Project, a leading national human trafficking organization and operator of the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline. There she authored several reports and briefs on criminal record relief, labor trafficking of guest workers, prison labor, and other human trafficking topics. She also worked at The Carter Center in the Human Rights Program as a Graduate Assistant and at Georgia State University where she taught classes and worked on a variety of criminal justice related research projects. She has worked for over 10 years in the anti-human trafficking space. Ms. Marsh has a master’s degree in criminal justice and criminology from Georgia State University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Georgia Institute of Technology.