Rachel Lloyd

\t In 1998, Rachel Lloyd established GEMS: Girls Educational and Mentoring Services to support American girls and young women who are survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking. GEMS is now the nation’s largest organization offering direct services to American victims of sex trafficking. Ms. Lloyd played a key role in the successful passage of New York State’s groundbreaking Safe Harbor Act for Sexually Exploited Youth, the first law in the country to end the prosecution of child victims of sex trafficking. She is also a Reebok Human Rights Award winner, and has received many other awards for her work. She is the Executive Producer of the Showtime documentary Very Young Girls, and the author of the memoir Girls Like Us.

\t Ms. Lloyd has a profoundly personal understanding of her work. A survivor of commercial sexual exploitation as a teen, she knows the hidden, emotional scars such exploitation can leave on children and youth.