Teresa Forliti

Teresa "Terry" Forliti is a survivor of sexual exploitation. She works diligently to create social justice for those who have experienced such trauma.

​

Locally, as a former Chief Executive Officer of Vednita Carter founded Breaking Free, Terry’s contributions include, providing permanent supportive housing, a drop-in shelter that served over 200 survivors each year, and a Safe Harbor Shelter which provided housing for up to six months for many residents in collaboration with Minnesota Department of Health.

Nationally, Terry was a fellow in both the 1st and 2nd Cohorts of World Without Exploitation’s STAND program, Shared Hope International’s JustUS Advisory Committee and consults with NCOSE, the National Coalition on Sexual Exploitation while advancing policy.

​

Globally, she was a subject matter expert on the International Survivors of Trafficking Advisory Committee (ISTAC) for the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights at the OSCE- the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Today, Terry is a research analyst with the HART Team – Human Action Research Team funded by a grant to the University of Minnesota/Clemson University/Northeastern University. Our current project is on disrupting models of exploitation to reduce demand using Markov Chain Modeling and creating tool kits for effective academic collaboration.

​

As a member of Women’s Graduates-USA, STSC and GAHTS, the Sex Trade Survivor Caucus and Global Anti-Human Trafficking Scholars she participates in advancing solutions and networking to build a better paths to eradicate harms caused by exploitation.