Siddharth Kara

Siddharth Kara is an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at HKS. He is recognized as an expert on contemporary slavery and is best known for his award-winning book, Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery, the first of three books he is writing on the subjects of human trafficking and contemporary slavery. Sex Trafficking was named co-winner of the prestigious 2010 Frederick Douglass Award at Yale University for the best non-fiction book on slavery. The award is generally regarded as the top prize in the field of slavery scholarship, and Kara's is the first book on modern slavery to receive the award. In addition to his books, Kara has authored several academic and law journal articles.

Kara first encountered the horrors of slavery in a Bosnian refugee camp in 1995. Subsequently, he has traveled to twenty-five countries across six continents to research these crimes, interviewing over a thousand former and current slaves of all kinds, witnessing firsthand the sale of humans into slavery, and confronting some of those who trafficked and exploited them.

Kara currently advises the United Nations, the U.S. Government, and several other governments on antislavery research, policy and law. His second book on slavery, Bonded Labor: Inside the System of Slavery in South Asia is scheduled to be published in 2012. Kara is a regular contributor to the CNN Freedom Project, and his ongoing research into slavery around the world has been covered by CNN, the BBC, and CNBC.

Previously, Kara was an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, then ran his own finance and M&A consulting firm. He holds a law degree from England, MBA from Columbia University, and BA from Duke University.