featuring

Opening Remarks

Mirzeta Hadzikadic

President, Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina

Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2253

45 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, D.C. 20515

Nearly every country in the world is affected by human trafficking, the majority of victims being women and children. This Bosnian Women's Day, we will address the global issue of human trafficking, highlight the mechanisms to monitor and combat these serious crimes and examine the strides that Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has made in its anti-human trafficking efforts.

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson is serving her 11th term representing the 30th Congressional District of Texas. Congresswoman Johnson is widely recognized as one of the most effective legislators in Congress. She is credited with originally authoring and co-authoring more than 150 bills that were passed by the House and Senate and signed into law. Congresswoman Johnson is the Democratic co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Bosnia, the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology and serves on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Since coming to Congress, Congresswoman Johnson has earned the reputation of being a stateswoman who is dedicated to improving U.S. foreign relationships and policies. She works tirelessly towards improving human rights around the globe. Congresswoman Johnson's acclaimed initiative "A World of Women for World Peace" has been nationally and internationally recognized.

Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and has worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender and sexual identity issues and human trafficking. Domi broke the story of the American Kathryn Bolkovac, a UN human rights investigator who uncovered an extensive presence of human sex trafficking in post-war BiH whose story was later made into the Hollywood film, The Whistleblower. During her previous policy work in BiH implementing the Dayton Peace Accords for the OSCE Mission 1996-2000, Domi served in the position of Spokesperson, Counselor to U.S. Ambassador Robert Barry and Chair of the OSCE Media Experts Commission. She has been widely published by or appeared in news media such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The BBC, Oslobodjenje, Al Jazeera America, NPR, C-SPAN, CNN International and PBS NewsHour. Domi earned a Master of Arts degree in Human Rights from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree in Political Science and Journalism from the Central Michigan University. Domi also served in the U.S. Army for 15 years.

Martina E. Vandenberg is the Founder and President of The Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center and has spent nearly two decades fighting human trafficking, forced labor, rape as a war crime, and violence against women. Vandenberg has represented victims of human trafficking pro bono in immigration, criminal, and civil cases. Widely regarded as an expert on an array of human rights issues, she has testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, the Helsinki Commission, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the House Armed Services Committee. A former Human Rights Watch researcher, she spearheaded investigations into human rights violations in the Russian Federation, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Uzbekistan, Kosovo, Israel, and Ukraine. She is the author of two Human Rights Watch reports, "Hopes Betrayed: Trafficking of Women and Girls to Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina for Forced Prostitution," and "Kosovo: Rape as a Weapon of Ethnic Cleansing." While living in the Russian Federation, she co-founded Syostri, one of Russia's first rape crisis centers for women. A Rhodes Scholar and Truman Scholar, Vandenberg has also taught as adjunct faculty at the American University Washington College of Law.