Bureau of Global Public
Affairs

Speakers

Moderator:  Sarah Evans, Public Affairs Officer

Kari Johnstone serves as Acting Director and Principal Deputy Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (J/TIP), where she has been Principal Deputy Director since 2014. In this role, she advises senior officials on U.S. Government policy and programming strategies to fight human trafficking around the world and oversees the production of the Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report. In 2013 and 2014, Dr. Johnstone served as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia and International Religious Freedom in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL). She was the Director and Deputy Director of the Office for International Religious Freedom between 2010 and 2014. In spring 2012, she served as Director for Russia and Central Asia at the National Security Staff of the White House. She previously worked as the Acting Office Director and Deputy Director of DRL’s Office for the Near East and South and Central Asian Affairs. Kari served as the election officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in 2004 and as the human rights officer at the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent in 2003. In 2001-2002, she was a Research Scholar at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Dr. Johnstone is a career member of the Senior Executive Service and received a B.A. from the University of Michigan and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, all in political science. She speaks Ukrainian and Russian, some Czech and Slovak, and a little Hungarian.

 

 

 

 

Tegan Hare joined the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons in 2016 to support the President’s Interagency Task Force to Combat Trafficking in Persons and the newly formed U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking. She then transitioned to focus on survivor engagement and worked with senior leadership to build the survivor engagement portfolio from the ground up. In 2019, Ms. Hare led the successful launch of a groundbreaking initiative for the U.S. Department of State to receive survivor expertise in its anti-trafficking efforts, the Human Trafficking Expert Consultant Network (Network). She manages large contracts that have allowed her office to continue providing critical support for the U.S. Advisory Council and to run the Network. Under her guidance and management thus far, the Network has helped shape several key Department anti-trafficking products, including the Trafficking in Persons Report. Ms. Hare also impacted legislation that authorized monetary compensation for members of the U.S. Advisory Council. Responsible for overseeing the development and delivery of training on how to understand and respond to trauma for staff in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Ms. Hare works to ensure the Department’s efforts are victim-centered, and survivor- and trauma-informed.

Before joining J/TIP, Ms. Hare worked as a Program Analyst in the Bureau for Economic Growth, Education and Environment at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Ms. Hare graduated from James Madison University with a B.A. in International Affairs and a B.A. in Spanish with a minor in Latin American Studies.

 

 

 

Desirée Suo Weymont joined the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons in 2010. In 2020, Ms. Weymont was named Senior Coordinator for the Reports and Political Affairs team, where she oversees the compilation of country assessments and diplomatic engagement surrounding the Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report. This follows nearly six years as one of the Reports and Political Affairs team’s Deputy Senior Coordinators, where she oversaw the work of several analysts monitoring trafficking in persons trends in Africa, the Middle East, and South and Central Asia. Prior to that, Ms. Weymont was an analyst on the team and completed a Presidential Management Fellowship. Before joining the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Ms. Weymont worked as an Immigration Officer with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Ms. Weymont graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in History and Italian Studies from NYU and received an M.A. in Politics from the Transatlantic Masters Program at UNC after completing coursework and research at the Università degli Studi di Siena in Italy. In 2018, Ms. Weymont received a certificate in Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery from the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma and Harvard Medical School.