Melanie Thompson is a speaker, activist, and leader in the global fight to end sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Trafficked in New York at the age of 12, arrested for prostitution a few years later, and placed in the foster care system, she became an activist at age 14. Ms. Thompson has testified before numerous legislatures about the need to pass strong anti-trafficking laws and ending the arrests of sex trafficked and prostituted children and women in the sex trade. She is a student at Hunter College of the City University of New York and intends to open up her own non-profit organization to assist victims of sex trafficking and prostitution.