Guthrie Theater

Tuesday, May 29 following the 7:30 p.m. show

Special guest participant: Dr. Jennifer Butler, UNFPA (The United Nations Population Fund)

Dr. Jennifer Butler is the Senior Technical Consultant in UNFPA's HIV/AIDS Branch, where she has special responsibility for HIV and sex work. After completing a doctoral degree in anthropology from Macquarie University in Australia with field work undertaken in Thailand, Dr. Butler received a post-doctoral fellowship from the Australian government that took her back to Thailand. There she conducted a study of the factors that lead women to enter into sex work - including family and local community involvement in sex trafficking - as well as the factors that influence their decision and ability to leave these situations. Dr. Butler remained in Thailand for over 15 years developing programs and policies related to HIV/AIDS, sex work, injecting drug use and health system reform, working with the Thai population, the minority Akha people in the far north of the country, and cross border undocumented migrants from Burma and China. Among her accomplishments in Thailand, Dr Butler established healthcare and income generation programs for people living with HIV/AIDS, young women engaged in the sex industry, and for the children of people living with HIV.

Thursday, May 31 following the 7:30 p.m. show

Special guest participants: Robin Phillips, Executive Director, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
and
Anchalee (Joy) Panigabutra-Roberts, St. Cloud State University and the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum - St. Cloud Chapter

Robin Phillips is the Executive Director of Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights. She formerly served as the Director of the Women's Human Rights Program and the Deputy Director of the organization. She has written on a variety of topics related to women's human rights including trafficking in women, employment discrimination, sexual harassment and domestic violence. She has taught courses on women's international human rights at the University of Minnesota Law School and a general introduction to human rights at St. Thomas University Law School. Ms. Phillips has conducted fact-finding missions to document human rights violations in Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia, Poland, Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. She has organized international conferences and trainings on human rights and NGO development issues. She also helped lead Minnesota Advocates' delegation to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China in September 1995. Prior to Minnesota Advocates, Ms. Phillips practiced law with the firm of Briggs and Morgan in St. Paul, Minnesota. She received her law degree from Northwestern University School of Law and her B.A., magna cum laude, from Pepperdine University.

Anchalee (Joy) Panigabutra-Roberts is the Catalog Librarian and the selector for Women's Studies at St. Cloud State University. She was born and educated in Thailand with B.A.'s in English from Chiangmai University and from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and an M.A. and Specialist Degree in Libraries and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with the concentration on Women's Studies and Public Affairs. Joy worked in libraries at UW-Madison and Cornell University, taught library science at the University of Western Ontario, and set up an Aboriginal library in London, Ontario prior to coming to SCSU. Her background in trafficking issues comes from graduate coursework, independent studies, field research on grassroots women organizing in Thailand, and as an organizer for a local workshop on trafficking of women for the Canadian Council on Refugees. At SCSU, she joined the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF)-St. Cloud chapter and actively advocates against human trafficking.

Saturday, June 2, following the 1 p.m. show

Special guest participant: Sokunthy Yean, College of St. Catherine, Cambodian student and anti-trafficking activist

More information coming soon.