Become informed and make an impact with a Beyond Borders keynote speaker or discussion panelist. We can tailor presentations to your specific group or organization.
Topics
- Overview of child sexual exploitation issues
- How the Web has accelerated offending using child abuse images (child pornography) and Internet luring.
- Child brides in Canada
- How business can combat child sexual exploitation through corporate social responsibility measures.
- Report card on Canada’s efforts to protect children from sexual exploitation.
Speakers
Rosalind Prober
, C.M.
Rosalind is the president and co-founder of Beyond Borders. She is also one of the founders of Cybertip.ca, Canada’s national tipline to report online child sexual exploitation.
She has served on the board of directors of ECPAT International since 2005 and has led Beyond Borders to become a bilingual, national, volunteer-driven nonprofit working to stop global child sexual exploitation.
Rosalind has won many awards for her work to protect children.
Speaking topics: Child Sex Tourism, Internet Luring, Sexual Abuse Imagery (child pornography), Sexual Abuse in Polygamy, Commercial Child Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking.
Mark Erik Hecht, B.A., DIA, LL.B.
Mark Erik Hecht is an academic, lawyer and human rights advocate. He is currently Visiting Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Common Law, prior to which he was Assistant Professor and Access to Justice Fellow at the University of Windsor.
Professor Hecht’s primary research interest is international child law, specifically the role and involvement of the private sector in the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
Professor Hecht sits on the Executive Committee of ECPAT International, the Canadian government’s Committee against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Youth, and the Patron Board of the Alliance for the Rights of Children. He is the national coordinator for CINCYR: The Canadian Information Network on Child and Youth Rights, based in Ottawa.
Mark is the co-founder of Beyond Borders and is the organization’s Senior Legal Counsel.
Speaking topics: Corporate Social Responsibility, International Child Law
Norman Boudreau, B.ED., LL.B.
Norman practices civil litigation and Aboriginal law at the firm Booth Dennehy LLP where he is a managing partner. He practices law in both English and French.
Norman is the Vice-President of Beyond Borders and in that capacity has presented oral and written submissions to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights on legislative matters pertaining to child sexual exploitation.
His other advocacy work includes membership on the hearing panel under the Vulnerable Persons Living with Mental Disabilities Act. He is also a board member of the Community Legal Education Association and is Treasurer and Vice-President of Association des juristes d’expression française du Manitoba.
Speaking topics: National Sex Offender Registry, Age of Protection, Travel Restrictions for Sex Offenders
Nicole Merrick, B.A., LL.B
Nicole is a Winnipeg-based lawyer practicing in the areas of corporate and commercial law, intellectual property and privacy law. Nicole also regularly works on matters dealing with children’s rights and the rights of vulnerable persons.
Nicole recently returned from a volunteer term with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Regional Office for South-East Asia in Bangkok, Thailand, where she worked for six months on human-trafficking and other human rights issues.
In addition to being on the board of directors of Beyond Borders, Nicole is also board member, legal counsel and past-chairperson for The Laurel Centre, Inc., an organization that provides counseling services to women who have experienced child sexual victimization. Nicole also sits as a director on the board of directors of Winnipeg Crime Stoppers Inc.
Speaking Topics: Child Sex Trafficking
Jonathan Rosenthal, LL.B
Jonathan Rosenthal is a Toronto based criminal defence lawyer and professor adjunct at Osgoode Hall Law School.
He is a legal commentator for CTV and has made it his passion to advocate as best he can on behalf of society’s most vulnerable members; children.
Speaking Topics: Child Sex Tourism, Internet Luring, Sexual Abuse Imagery (child pornography), Sexual Abuse in Polygamy, Commercial Child Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking (pertaining to specific case law and legislation).
David Matas, LL.M
David Matas is a Winnipeg based immigration and refugee lawyer. He chaired the international meetings of ECPAT in Bangkok in 2002, and in Rio de Janiero in 2005 and 2008. He provides legal council for Beyond Borders. He was awarded the Order of Canada in December 2008.
Speaking Topics: Child Sexual Abuse Images (child pornography)
Katherine Fournier, LL.M
Katherine Fournier is lawyer practicing family and corporate law in Montreal. She is a 
graduate of the University of Sherbrooke Faculty of Law where she obtained a master’s degree in common law and transnational law. She also obtained a master’s degree in international law from the University of Montreal, which motivated her to address the problem of sexual exploitation of children from a Canadian and international perspective. In 2009, she completed an internship at the International Bureau for Children’s Rights, working on issues such as child sex tourism and child trafficking. She is a passionate child rights activist.
Speaking topics: Child Sex Tourism, Commercial Child Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking, International Child Law
Justin Roberge, LL.M
Justin Roberge is as a lawyer with Lacoste Langevin and he practices exclusively in family law. Mr. Roberge did
his masters in law at the University of Montreal on the repression of child sex tourism using international law and the Canadian penal code. He studied human rights in Strasbourg at the René-Cassin Institute for Human Rights in 1999.
In 2003, Mr. Roberge wrote a joint article in Téoros, Vol. 22, N. 1, on Tourism and Sexuality: International and Canadian Solutions to the Problem of Child Sex Tourism. In 2009, Mr. Roberge was honored with the Family Lawyer of the Year award from The Young Bar Association of Montreal.
Speaking topics: Child Sex Tourism
