Approaches to Reducing the Use of Forced or Child Labor: Summary of a Workshop on Assessing Practice (2009)

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Appendix C Speaker Biographies Bama Athreya is the executive director for the International Labor Rights Forum, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit advocacy organization. The ILRF promotes worker rights worldwide through research, publications, public education and advocacy related to trade agreements and corporate accountability. At the ILRF, Dr. Athreya has developed new programs and advocated for stronger protections for workers’ rights with governments, multinational corporations and international organizations. She developed and launched new work including the Rights for Working Women Campaign to research, understand and promote viable remedies for sexual harassment and violence in the workplace; the Ethical Garments Project working with brands, labeling initiatives and public procurement efforts to create a ‘sweatfree’ standard for apparel production worldwide; the China Rule of Law Project which trains judges, arbitrators, lawyers, and employees of government legal aid centers and trade unions in labor law within China; and work with partner organizations in each of the Central American countries to develop comprehensive independent assessments of national labor standards. Dr. Athreya joined the ILRF in early 1998, just after returning from a two-year assignment in Cambodia as the AFL-CIO’s Country Representative. While in Cambodia she directed worker education and labor law training programs and conducted extensive research on the problems of women workers and on child labor. She is a social anthropologist, and received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. She spent three years in Indonesia, first as a State Department official and later as an independent researcher, and wrote her dissertation on Indonesia’s labor movement. She has also lived and worked in China, Taiwan and India. Dr. Athreya has published extensively on the issues of corporate accountability and human rights in global supply chains, and has provided public commentary on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and other major media outlets. Toni Dembski-Brandl graduated from Carroll College in 1985 with a Bachelors of Arts in International Relations. In 1987, she received a Master of Art in Political Science from Marquette University. In 1996, Toni graduated from DePaul University College of Law and began her practice of law with one of the country’s oldest international trade firms, Barnes, Richardson & Colburn. In 1997, Toni joined Target Corporation’s Law Department. She advises clients in matters of Customs Law, International Trade, International Sale of Goods, International Finance and Social Compliance. Target Corporation is one of the largest importers of merchandise in the United States and has robust Customs Compliance and Social Compliance programs. Charita L. Castro is Division Chief for the Program Operations and Research Team in U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking (OCFT). Dr. Castro leads a team of nine staff who are responsible for overseeing audits and evaluations of grants and contracts; funding extramural research and coordinating Congressionally-mandated reports such as the Department of Labor’s Annual Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor; and managing the budget and 77 

78 APPENDIX C reporting duties for the office, including submissions for the President’s Management Agenda and the Government Performance and Results Act. Dr. Castro began her government career as a Presidential Management Fellow with the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Tulane University, a master of social work from Washington University in St. Louis, and a doctorate from the George Washington University’s School of Public Policy and Public Administration. Bill Guyton is the president of the World Cocoa Foundation, private sector, non-profit organization focusing specifically on farmer outreach and environmental programs. Currently, Bill oversees regional public-private partnership programs that focus on cocoa sustainability. He also helps to coordinate an international research program with USDA and other partners. Bill assisted in forming the World Cocoa Foundation in July 2000, which now has over 60 chocolate companies and trade association members from North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia. Prior to joining the chocolate industry, Bill was Director of Business Development at the U.S. Grains Council where he helped to identify new market opportunities. Bill worked for more than 10 years in developing countries, advising and implementing agricultural and environmental programs for USAID, the World Bank, GTZ, OECD, Peace Corps and other development organizations. Bill holds a Master of Science Degree from Michigan State University in Agricultural Economics and a Bachelor of Science from Colorado State University. Aurelie Hauchère has studied International Relations and has a Master in Development and Humanitarian Affairs. She has worked with several nongovernmental organizations and is now managing technical cooperation projects for the ILO Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour (www.ilo.org/forcedlabour ), with a special focus on Latin America, France and French-speaking countries in Africa. Thea Lee is policy director and chief international economist at the AFL-CIO, where she oversees research and strategies on domestic and international economic policy. Previously, she worked as an international trade economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. and as an editor at Dollars & Sense magazine in Boston. She received a Bachelors degree from Smith College and a Masters degree in economics from the University of Michigan. Ms. Lee is co-author of A Field Guide to the Global Economy, published by the New Press. Her research projects include reports on the North American Free Trade Agreement, on the impact of international trade on U.S. wage inequality, and on the domestic steel and textile industries. She has appeared on numerous television and radio shows, including the News Hour with Jim Lehrer; CNN; Good Morning America; NPR’s All Things Considered and Marketplace; and the PBS documentary, Commanding Heights. She has testified before several committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate on various economic policy topics. She serves on several advisory committees, including the State Department Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and the Export-Import Bank Advisory Committee. She is also on the Board of Directors of the Worker Rights Consortium and the National Bureau of Economic Research. 

APPENDIX C 79 Jeff Morgan is the director of Global Programs for Mars Incorporated, based at their global headquarters in McLean, Virginia, near Washington, DC. He has worked in the Food and Agriculture industry for nearly 33 years. He received his Bachelors Degree in Chemistry from Miami of Ohio and his Masters in Food Systems from The Ohio State University. He joined Mars Incorporated in 1979 where he has focused his attention on all aspects of the value chain for cocoa and chocolate. In that time he has worked on projects in nearly every major cocoa-growing region of Africa, Latin America and Asia – finding ways to improve cocoa farming practices and thereby benefit farmers, their families and their cocoa farming communities. Since 2005 Jeff has primarily worked to address questions related to Child and Adult labor practices in the cocoa sectors of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, representing not only the interests of Mars, Incorporated--but also representing the interests of the North American and European cocoa industry coalition-- the Global Issues Group (GIG). Within this effort, Jeff has worked in partnership with key stakeholders in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire--being actively engaged on the ground and spending significant amounts of time in the West African Cocoa growing regions over the past 5 years. In addition to his effort on labor practices, Jeff is also working to implement a novel public / private partnership undertaken by Mars with a select group of Civil Society partners. The program, known as iMPACT (The Mars Partnership for African Cocoa Communities of Tomorrow) is focused on bringing needed services to cocoa growing communities in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, using a community empowerment model of entry, assessment and delivery. Mark Neuman is counselor for International Trade & Global Strategies for Limited Brands (www.LimitedBrands.com) and MAST Industries (www.MAST.com). In that capacity, he serves as an international trade and country risk advisor to a leading specialty retailer and its global contract manufacturing and sourcing subsidiary with a dozen offices around the globe. Neuman is also responsible for leading an effort to develop links between women-owned organic cotton producers in West Africa and the Victoria's Secret Brand. Prior to his current position, Neuman served as a principal in the international investment banking and marketing firm, Global Linx Corporation. Previously, Neuman served on the Reagan White House Staff and also held a variety of positions on Capitol Hill and the Executive Branch -- including the Bureau of Export Administration, and on the Executive Staff of the US Bureau of the Census. Neuman remains active as an advisor to the U.S. Government, Congress and international organizations. He served as transition advisor to the new President of the World Bank, as an advisor to the Presidential transition team of the US President in 2001, and as chairman of the 2010 Census Advisory Committee, a joint appointment by the US Secretary of Commerce and Director of the Census. Neuman also served as staff liaison to the President's Advisory Committee for Presidential Trade Negotiations in the first term of the Bush Administration. Neuman currently serves on the Executive Committee of the National Cotton Board, having been appointed under both the Clinton and Bush Administrations. Previously, he co-chaired the presidentially mandated Census Monitoring Board, appointed by the U.S. Senate Majority Leader. Neuman is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Urbana with a degree in Economics and a native of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. 

80 APPENDIX C Jorge Perez-Lopez is executive director of the Fair Labor Association (FLA), a multi- stakeholder organization that combines the efforts of industry, civil society organizations, and colleges and universities to protect workers’ rights and improve working conditions worldwide by promoting adherence to international labor standards. He joined the FLA in 2005. Prior to joining the FLA, he spent 31 years in different positions within the U.S. Department of Labor, where he directed the Office of International Economic Affairs, Bureau of International Labor Affairs. Rachel Phillips Rigby has been with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking (OCFT) for four years. She initially managed OCFT’s grant portfolio in the South Asian subcontinent and conducted research on child labor and forced labor in that region, and now oversees DOL’s research activities pursuant to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005, including the development of DOL’s List of Goods made by forced labor and child labor. Ms. Rigby’s background includes three years in the nonprofit sector with international microfinance and public health organizations. She holds an MBA from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, a B.A. in American Studies from Grinnell College, and has studied and volunteered abroad in Switzerland, France, England, and Bolivia. Meg Roggensack is a lawyer specializing in international trade and human rights and is currently the Policy Director at Free the Slaves. During her private legal career at Hogan and Hartson, she headed the firm's Latin America Practice Group, guided the Community Service Department's expansion into public international law pro bono matters, and chaired coalitions of businesses, think tanks and nonprofit organizations. She has been recognized for her extensive pro bono work in the field of international human rights and justice reform. Ms. Roggensack serves on the boards of several human rights organizations, including the Due Process of Law Foundation and the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a past president of the Washington Foreign Law Society and a past Vice President of the Board of the Washington Office on Latin America. She is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law School, where she teaches "Human Rights at the Intersection of Trade and Corporate Responsibility." Benjamin Smith is a chief technical advisor (CTA) for the ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), and serves as IPEC Focal Point for Corporate Social Responsibility and Child Labour. He heads IPEC’s Project TACKLE, which supports efforts to eliminate child labour through education in 11 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific and is IPEC’s single largest technical cooperation project. He began his career with IPEC as a Programme Officer in San Jose, Costa Rica in 2000. From 2002-2006, he served as the CTA for the project of support to the Time Bound Programme in El Salvador, one of three initial countries to launch this integrated modality to tackle child labour. Prior to joining the ILO, he was an International Programme Analyst at the U.S. Department of Labor and a Presidential Management Fellow. He holds a B.A. in International Studies from American University and an M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University. 

APPENDIX C 81 Anna Walker is senior manager of Worldwide Government Affairs and Public Policy at Levi Strauss & Co. She is responsible for developing, planning and delivering government and public policy initiatives on environmental sustainability, worker rights, human rights and other business issues to promote LS&CO.’s business success. Prior to joining Levi Strauss & Co., Ms. Walker served for four years as Manager, Labor Affairs and Corporate Responsibility with the U.S. Council for International Business in New York City, where she advised member companies on international labor policy issues and international developments in the corporate citizenship arena. Ms. Walker also represented U.S. business at the International Labor Conference and the Governing Body of the International Labor Organization. Ms. Walker holds an M.A. in International Relations and Economics from Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and B.A.s in International Relations and Spanish from the University of California, Davis. Vicki Walker is with Winrock International in the Empowerment and Civic Engagement unit. She was the Director of the Community-based Innovations to Reduce Child Labor through Education (CIRCLE) project funded by the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) which documented and published a manual Best Practices in Eliminating Child Labor through Education drawn from the global CIRCLE projects. She leads the innovative program Child Labor Alternatives through Sustainable Systems in Education (CLASSE) in Côte d’Ivoire. CLASSE has worked in Mali and Côte d’Ivoire to address the push and pull factors in child labor in cocoa to address prevention of Child labor through educational alternatives including vocational education in agriculture that contribute to training a new generation of leaders and agricultural entrepreneurs. Ms. Walker leads the Winrock component of the ECHOES project, a public private partnership with the World Cocoa Foundation and members and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that has expanded the agricultural vocational educational principles for livelihoods in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. She is currently the home office coordinator and advisor to the Tanzania Education Alternatives for Children funded by USDOL. Ms. Walker has BA from the University of Maryland and a MA from the University of New Hampshire, both in Political Science and served in the Peace Corps in Senegal. Ms. Walker’s areas of focus are leadership, gender analysis, agriculture, prevention and elimination of child labor, promotion of women and children’s education, and improving economic status of rural communities and youth.