Faegre & Benson LLP

and

Minnesota Advocates

for Human Rights

Present:

The Children’s Human Rights Speaker Series

Child Soldiers: Who is Fighting Our Wars?

by Jennifer Prestholdt, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights and

Pham Thi Hoa, American Refugee Committee 

Monday, March 26, 2007

12:00 - 1:00 P.M.

Faegre & Benson LLP

The Century Room

2200 Wells Fargo Center ■ 90 South Seventh Street ■ Minneapolis, MN 55402

More and more, governments and rebel groups are using children, both boys and girls, to fight wars. These groups forcibly conscript, kidnap and coerce children, sometimes as young as 7 years old, to engage in combat, lay explosives, or be cooks, porters, messengers, spies and sex slaves. It is estimated that there are approximately 300,000 children soldiers worldwide. This lecture will discuss the devastating causes and effects of child soldiering.

Biographic Information

Jennifer Prestholdt is the Deputy Director of The Advocates for Human Rights. Ms. Prestholdt has a B.A. in political science from Yale and a M.A.L.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where she studied international human rights law and refugee policy. She graduated cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1996. Ms. Prestholdt worked on refugee and asylum issues for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland and interned for the Reebok Human Rights Program and the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination Against and Protection of Minorities. Prior to becoming Deputy Director of The Advocates, Ms. Prestholdt practiced asylum law for five years as the Director of the Refugee and Immigrant Program. As The Advocates’ Deputy Director, she assists in fundraising for and directing organizational operations and administers special projects dealing with emerging human rights issues, including the International Human Rights Monitoring Project. Ms. Prestholdt is an adjunct faculty member at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, where she teaches International Human Rights Law. She currently oversees the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Diaspora Project and will discuss child soldiers in West Africa.

Pham Thi Hoa is currently the Regional Director for West Africa at the American Refugee Committee International.  Ms. Pham's professional humanitarian engagements have been in the relief development sector of refugee service and assistance.  Prior to ARC International, she worked for the International Rescue Committee, overseeing its programs in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia, and for the Norwegian Refugee Council's unaccompanied minors reintegration program in Vietnam.  From 1989-1993, she worked with Save the Children and its Consortium partners to manage their resettlement training programs in Southeast Asian refugee camps in Thailand and Indonesia.  Ms. Pham holds a Master in Public Policy from Columbia University and obtained her BA at the University of Minnesota with a concentration in journalism and international relations.

Please RSVP to Julia Kashaeva at The Advocates by noon on Thursday, March 22.
(612) 341-3302 ext. 127 or jkashaeva@mnadvocates.org.
Lunch will be provided for those who RSVP. Application will be made for one CLE credit.

The bi-monthly Children's Human Rights Speaker Series will be held throughout 2007.

Lectures are free and open to the public (registration required).

For more information, please contact Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights at (612) 341-3302 or see our website at www.mnadvocates.org. You may find directions to Faegre & Benson LLP. at: www.faegre.com.