Professor Silvia Scarpa to Present Research at University of Amsterdam

John Cabot University Professor Silvia Scarpa has been selected to present the results of her research on student awareness and action in the field of contemporary slavery & human trafficking at the Regional Conference “Incorporating Human Trafficking in Academic Institutions: The European Experience” organized by the Protection Project of the Johns Hopkins University of Washington D.C. and the University of Amsterdam.

The conference will be held in Amsterdam on November 25th and 26th and Professor Scarpa will be presenting a paper entitled on: Incorporating Human Trafficking into Educational Curricula: The Case of the Course “Human Trafficking & Contemporary Slavery” offered at John Cabot University of Rome.

Professor Scarpa said that she wished to thank John Cabot University for the opportunity to introduce this new course into the academic curriculum and felt confident that these efforts aimed, on one side, at raising awareness among students on the existence of contemporary slavery and, on the other, on publicizing more and more our special work in this field will be important contributions towards alleviating egregious violations of human rights.

Professor Scarpa’s other initiatives related to this topic, include preparing JCU students for an article they plan to post on the CNN Freedom Project website as well organizing “The Anti-Trafficking and Contemporary Slavery Week” at John Cabot University from October 17th-20th, 2011.

John Cabot University’s course on Human Trafficking and Contemporary Slavery (PL 325) will be offered again in the Spring 2012 semester. The course description is below.

PL 325 Human Trafficking and Contemporary Slavery (Prerequisite: Junior standing)

After a brief, comparative overview of past slavery and slavery-like practices this course will focus in particular on chattel slavery, servitude/debt bondage, forced prostitution and sexual slavery, early and forced marriages and forced labor, and on the international instruments aimed at fighting against them. The course will subsequently deal with trafficking in human beings, examining international action to fight against it and to protect victims’ human rights, comparing the measures contained in the United Nations Protocol with those of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings.