Luis CdeBaca, senior adviser to the secretary and director of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, will speak about fighting human trafficking at 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Memorial Union.

CdeBaca, a graduate of Iowa State, has worked to combat human trafficking and modern-day slavery under three presidential administrations. In 2009, he was appointed by President Barack Obama to coordinate U.S. government activities in the global fight against contemporary forms of slavery.

“Trafficking in persons, a modern-day form of slavery, victimized as many as 27 million people whether through forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation,” CdeBaca said in a U.S. Department of State blog post. “It’s a crime that affects every country in the world.”

CdeBaca has received several awards for his work, including the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award, the Director’s Award from the Executive Office of the United States Attorneys, the Attorney General’s John Marshall Award and the Freedom Network’s Paul and Sheila Wellstone Award.

According to an article in the Washington Post, since CdeBaca began working at the Justice Department in 1993, he has “convicted more than 100 traffickers and has helped rescue and rehabilitate over 600 former slaves.”

“Modern slavery continues to be a reality for millions of people, rather than for an isolated few,” CdeBaca said in the trafficking in persons report for 2011. “The only solution to it is for governments to step up … The systemic and structural steps needed to prevent human trafficking must reflect a cultural change that rejects modern slavery, addresses the demand that fuels this crime, and requires personal responsibility … Every country — on every tier — can and must do more.”