Anita Teekah is LatinoJustice’s Chief of Advocacy and oversees the organization’s policy and advocacy campaign work related to worker and immigrant rights, voting rights, criminal and economic justice reform and issues affecting Puerto Rico. Anita is an experienced lobbyist and brings over a decade of advocacy experience in issues including refugee and migrant rights, human trafficking and economic justice with Amnesty International USA. She successfully, in coalition, secured passage of the START (Survivors of Trafficking Attaining Relief Together) Act in New York, which enables victims of human trafficking to seek criminal record relief for convictions related to their trafficking, and has also supported multiple reauthorizations of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and the International Violence Against Women Act.

Prior to joining LatinoJustice, Anita was the Senior Director of the Anti-Trafficking Program at Safe Horizon, the nation’s largest victim services agency, and supported social workers, immigration attorneys and human trafficking survivors in providing direct services and engaging in advocacy. Anita has worked with child labor and sex trafficking victims and child laborers in the Philippines and was a litigator. She holds a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law (2008) and a B.A. in Political Science from The George Washington University (2005).