Orrick’s Rene Kathawala Named Human Trafficking Legal Center’s Advocate of the Year

The Human Trafficking Legal Center presented Orrick Pro Bono Counsel Rene Kathawala with The Advocate of the Year Award at the organization's annual gala. This award recognizes Rene's remarkable decadelong commitment to pro bono advocacy on behalf of trafficking survivors, including leading a team of more than 100 Orrick lawyers and staff involved in this work. Most recently, Rene led Orrick's team in publishing a series of practice legal guides for prosecutors and advocates to address the worldwide problem of sexual abuse of children by perpetrators traveling abroad.

"Child sexual exploitation in travel and tourism plagues communities across the globe, and accountability for the perpetrators is all too rare," Rene observed. The Orrick guides, co-published with The Human Trafficking Legal Center, focus on holding perpetrators from countries outside the United States accountable in their home jurisdictions for extraterritorial crimes. The guides' impact is real: they have been downloaded nearly 1,000 times since publication, and thousands more have been distributed by the center.

Rene and team created the guides both through extensive research into the laws of each foreign jurisdiction and their experience winning in federal court for trafficking survivors. These teams have also won T visas for survivors to remain safely in the country. Thank you, Rene, for your leadership.