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Barbara Frey, head of the
human rights program in the College of Liberal Arts,
says, “A gift for something like a human rights
internship can change someone’s life. You give
a student experience in the field and you’ve
made an emerging human rights professional.” |
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 As
she addressed a large crowd at Coffman Union on the U’s
Twin Cities campus, Marilyn Carlson Nelson led the very
effort to make change.
She spoke
at the close of an international conference on the human
trafficking of children. The conference was a joint effort
of the Carlson Companies and the U’s renowned human rights programs. A home
to internationally recognized experts in human rights,
the U was a natural partner to address what Carlson Nelson
called “the first global civil rights movement
of the new millennium.”
With generous support from
the Carlson Companies, whose core business, travel, is
vulnerable to human trafficking, the U’s leading
human rights scholars helped plan the “Global Front
for Children” conference. Hundreds of attendees – some
from as far away as India and Uzbekistan – heard
speakers such as UNICEF’s executive director, a
U.S. ambassador, and officials from Brazil, Australia,
and Taiwan.
“We have a deep passion for families,” Carlson
Nelson said of her family-owned Carlson Companies, “which
has compelled us to protect children from commercial
sexual exploitation.”Her involvement in the conference
utilized both her passion and her position: “As
a business leader…I have the opportunity, indeed
the responsibility, to make an impact beyond the short
term – beyond the bottom line.”
View
Marilyn Carlson Nelson's "Global Front for Children".
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