On January 28, the Academy was pleased to partner with the Palm Beach State College Human Trafficking Coalition on the event Human Trafficking: Taking Off the Masks of Myths for National Human Trafficking Awareness Month. The event focused on breaking the stereotypes and societal myths of human trafficking. Liza Smoker, managing director of the Academy, provided various educational activities for the students and faculty, which raised awareness on less recognized forms of human trafficking.
Prof. Dr. Roza Pati
St. John Paul II Distinguished Professor of Law
Director, Graduate Program in Intercultural Human Rights
Founding Director, John J. Brunetti Human Trafficking Academy
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Dr. Pati is St. John Paul II Distinguished Professor of Law at St. Thomas University College of Law, where she also co-directs the programs of Master of Laws and the Doctorate of the Science of Law in Intercultural Human Rights. She teaches International Law, Human Rights Law, Human Trafficking Law, and Comparative Law. Inspired by her work against human trafficking since the early 1990s, Dr. Pati founded in 2010 the John J. Brunetti Human Trafficking Academy, an institute she continues to direct.
She is Faculty Adviser of the Intercultural Human Rights Law Review and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the international series: Studies in Intercultural Human Rights, published by BRILL/ Martinus Nijhoff.
Formerly a Member of Parliament and a Cabinet Member serving as the Secretary of State for Youth and Women of Albania, Dr. Pati has a wealth of experience in public service and academia. In 2012, Dr. Pati was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to serve as Member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace at the Vatican, and in 2020 she was appointed by the Holy Father Pope Francis to serve as Member of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, The Vatican.
In 2009, her doctoral dissertation was awarded the Wolf Rüdiger Bub Prize for the Promotion of the New Generation of Legal Scholars, by the University of Potsdam School of Law, Potsdam, Germany.
Dr. Pati was the Commencement Speaker at the Luarasi University School of Law, Tirana, Albania (2010), and at Carlos Albizu University, Miami (2014). For several years she was Visiting Professor of Law at the Romanian-American University in Bucharest, Romania. Dr. Pati is the recipient of several community awards including the Voice of Freedom Award (2017) from A Voice in the Wilderness and The Woman’s Table, and the inaugural Gillen-Massey Award (2022). In 2005, Professor Pati facilitated the preparation of The Miami Declaration of Principles on Human Trafficking, a set of law and policy recommendations, and she has made presentations on human trafficking in the capacity of an expert in several national and international symposia, conferences and seminars. Dr. Pati is a prolific scholar who has written extensively in the field of international law, human rights, human trafficking and international criminal law. She is a globally published author of books, book chapters and law review articles in multiple languages and she lectures at academic, governmental and inter-governmental institutions around the world.