Human trafficking is everywhere. It touches everyone. It's not something that occurs only outside the U.S., it happens in every country and in every state. Helping some of the world's most marginalized citizens gain their freedom is what satisfies me most.

For five years, my client Kiki (an alias) had been denied recognition as a victim of human trafficking. She and women like her lived on the margins of society without identification, citizenship or legal work status. They endured threats and abuses at the hands of exploitative and violent traffickers. And all without the protection of the law.

But that women like Kiki continue to suffer these injustices is more of the rule than the exception, and a lack of education is at its root. Everyone from police officers to landlords are unaware of the telltale signs of human trafficking, meaning people continue to be arrested, detained, and faced with deportation rather than provided with relief.

My compassion for these victims was solidified one day when I heard a story on the news. A ship was floating around the ocean with children on it bound for slavery. When the people manning the ship learned that military units were waiting for them to enter port, they bailed, leaving the children behind. Being a mother myself, I was furious.

Even though I didn't know what I could do about issues like these, I realized at that moment that I wasn't reaching my potential. I went back to college to finish my undergraduate degree—which had been 20 years in the making—and graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2002. Because I had been a nontraditional student, raising my family before finishing school, and because I did not have a clear vision of what I wanted to do with my degree, I was shy and lacked confidence in myself.

When I came to St. Mary's to pursue a graduate degree, I was so nervous and anxious about my first semester. It was challenging to stay on top of the rigorous workload in addition to my duties as a parent.

However, my desire to learn was stronger than my fears and worries. For the first time in my life, I was taking courses that answered questions I had about real-world events and how they affected individuals.

A global perspective

I began working on human trafficking while earning my master's in international relations, and in the same way that today I help my clients find a path toward a new life, the time at my alma mater took me down a similar road of self-discovery, fulfillment and success.

One semester, the President's Peace Commission (PPC) at St. Mary's hosted Laura Lederer, Ph.D., a senior adviser on trafficking in persons for the U.S. State Department. She spoke about the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which protects people enslaved within the United States. I knew, in that moment, that I had found my career. Because understanding the law is integral to aiding trafficked individuals, I went to Budapest and Paris to study arbitration and conflict resolution between cultures with a history of war.

My classmates in Europe were the very people I had been studying since my undergraduate years. They came from war torn countries and told me first-hand about the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and the Russian- Georgian crisis. The world opened up to me. I was interacting with the very people I had only heard about. I returned to St. Mary's to finish my last semester with a new understanding of the individual's experience in countries struggling with war.

I graduated in 2003 and worked for YMCA International Services in Houston, a refugee resettlement agency where I met victims of war and genocide from around the world. I was interested in their stories and fascinated by their urge to survive. The lectures, readings, discussions and theories I learned while at St. Mary's were now embodied in the people receiving assistance in my office.

Working at the YMCA under an 18-month Department of Justice grant to serve victims of trafficking, I trained law enforcement how to identify and respond to their unique needs. Just a month after starting my job, I was sent to Florida for the firstever national human trafficking conference.

I was one of 500 people nationwide selected as guests of the Department of Justice. We were welcomed by then President George W. Bush, Gov. Jeb Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Department of Homeland Security's Asa Hutchinson.

It was amazing to see the importance that the United States placed upon combating slavery and how the most powerful people in our nation wanted to help the most vulnerable people in the world.

At that conference, I was part of discussions about launching task forces across the nation. Houston's Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance (HTRA) was the next to be formed, and I co-wrote the grant for the HTRA and even spoke beside Sen. John Cornyn (J.D. '77) at a press conference.

Harnessing new media as teaching tools

I next went to California to lead another task force and to train law enforcement officials, university students and community groups about human trafficking. I also collaborated with celebrities like Anne Archer, Lee Purcell and Daryl Hannah, whose high profiles helped me gain attention to the cause as well as make training sessions more interesting than any PowerPoint presentation.

Another way to engage audiences was through the power of film. Michael Cory Davis, whom I met through a mutual friend in Los Angeles, directed a film called Svetlana's Journey about a victim of human trafficking. I used his movie as a tool to demonstrate the reality of trafficking. It helped people understand the victim's experience.

But because Svetlana's story took place abroad, my trainees didn't believe trafficking was a significant threat to people residing in this country. To reverse this misconception, I worked on a documentary film called CARGO: Innocence Lost as a coordinating producer with Davis. Alongside the seasoned director, we created CARGO to get the word out that trafficking is real, and that it's happening here in America.

I often look back at how St. Mary's helped prepare me for the unique needs of my career path, and my foray into film was no different. At a screening of CARGO, I saw a familiar name on the guest list, John Carlos Frey. Frey was a filmmaker who visited St. Mary's while I was a graduate student to show his film The Gatekeeper. His movie details unrest along the United States-Mexico border, as well as the experiences of hopeful migrants. It told true stories of the people I was learning about in class at the time.

I was inspired by how he got it so right. I remember asking so many questions after his screening, and he probably thought I was just an annoying graduate student. But at the CARGO screening, Frey and I were so pleasantly surprised that he was now watching my film.

Due to my background, I was in demand for many high-profile projects, such as MSNBC's documentary Sex Slaves in America and ABC Primetime's A Cinderella Story. I helped both networks connect with the right people, the right research and the right documentation. Through these projects I was able to combine my education, experiences and connections with the work that I love.

Uncovering layers of deception

From the day I met Laura Lederer during St. Mary's PPC program, I saw that I could make a difference by training businesses and organizations about trafficking. After working for two years in California under the 18-month grant, I formed my own company, Laster Global Consulting, before heading back to Texas. By creating my own consulting company, I was reaching the goal I had set for myself back at St. Mary's.

Now I train business owners, attorneys, and governmental and nonprofit employees how to identify victims and prosecute traffickers. Training like this is in their own interest, because they may unknowingly be at financial risk due to recently enacted laws that have a zero-tolerance policy for slavery in any product or service.

Traffickers target well-intentioned businesses or government contractors that might facilitate the trade of human beings, because they don't want to use their own assets and resources. Often in roles as subcontractors or as managers, traffickers enter into a business agreement with any multinational company that has a structure amenable to the trafficking industry.

The business owners think, "I only have to worry about my employees," but new laws say that companies are responsible not only for employees, but subcontractors and those people's dependents as well. If any of these are engaged in human trafficking activities, the employer may face severe financial losses, asset seizure, and can even be stripped of all government funding.

Perseverance brings new hope

New laws are doing a better job of protecting women like my client Kiki, who may well have been visible to the world as a legitimate employee, as a legal working citizen, or as a happy apartment tenant, but not for what she was—a victim of human trafficking.

My work was featured in the April 2010 issue of Texas Monthly magazine in a story called "The Lost Girls" by Mimi Swartz. In that story, Kiki represented so many women that I've worked with. Without the protection of the law that comes with citizenship and legal work status, these women are prey to any misstep. When Kiki was driving in Louisiana in 2009, she was involved in a low-impact collision, and when police asked her to provide documentation for herself, she couldn't. The international driver's license she believed was valid was actually false, and she wound up spending a year in jail because of it.

To serve Kiki in this situation, I earned the necessary credentials to practice immigration law. Now, even though I am not an attorney, I am able to practice immigration law through status granted by the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Department of Justice.

It took a substantial team effort, but with help I was able to get Kiki released after a year of detention, ending the long cycle of exploitation and abuse and marking the beginning of her future in the United States.

The day Kiki was let out of jail, I drove to Louisiana to get her. Together we drove home to Houston where I had planned a surprise party for her. When we got to the restaurant, Mimi Swartz, the Texas Monthly writer was there, as well as the editorial editor of the Houston Chronicle, several elected officials, and my own family.

During the celebration I thought of how I began on this road – scared, shy, lacking confidence, but filled with a desire to learn and serve with a strong sensitivity to injustice. Upon graduating from St. Mary's, my professor and mentor, Larry Hufford, Ph.D., instructed us to become a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.

Here are these women who, once they are freed from their captors, are up against a bureaucratic mountain. I have to be good at what I do because these people depend on me. I learned that anyone can help another person, and I didn't know that until I got into this career.

In gaining my clients' freedom, I found my own. Because of my education and life experiences, I now enjoy the confidence, empowerment and satisfaction that come with a career focused on improving and saving lives.