KIM BIDDLE - Saving Innocence

Founder and Executive Director of Saving Innocence, Kim Biddle, began working with sex trafficking victims in 2003 when she partnered with International Justice Mission (IJM) in Cambodia and Thailand. In the last few years she has shifted her focus from the global arena to the aftercare of locally trafficked minors - becoming more aware of the extent of western man's continued appetite for trafficked children, along with the callousness by which these children are often greeted by both the legal and social systems.

"We need to have enough of an uproar so that we can influence the politicians enough to make a change,
because, honestly, the problem is there are too many men in high up places, including politicians,
who buy girls. These girls aren't powerful people ... These are the little girls who don't have a voice." - Kim Biddle

Kim has trained hundreds of social workers, law enforcement, educators and community leaders on identifying human trafficking victims and implementing intervention and aftercare strategies. She earned her Masters of Social Work from the University of Southern California, and went on to receive her Masters in Global Health Certification from the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma, earning special certifications to work with survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking. She's a founding member of the Saddlebrook Justice Task Force and a member of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Task Force Against Human Trafficking and the ICAN Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) Committee.

"Martin Luther King, Jr. said 'If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving,
you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.' Victimization
and oppression robs people of hope. We live in a time of great injustice. Some of those
who have experienced the greatest injustices, are the most overlooked, the most misjudged,
and most grievously abused are victims of human trafficking. These victims have their freedom
stolen and their voices silenced. Experts estimate that there are up to 300,000 American children
who fall victim to sex trafficking every single year in the United States." - Kim Biddle

LIEUTENANT ANDRE DAWSON

Lieutenant Andre Dawson has been with the LAPD for 32 years with over 20 years of undercover operations and supervisory experience. In November 2011, he was nominated and selected to participate in the FBI, Police Executive Fellowship Program at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Currently Lt. Dawson supervises the daily operations of the LA Metro Human Trafficking Task Force and the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force. He also had the privilege of being a member of the California Dept. of Justice, Attorney General's Human Trafficking Work Group and contributed to the 2012 State of Human Trafficking in California Report.