2009

• CAST expands its efforts internationally by establishing a partnership with Mexico’s border states to help fight trafficking at its root.
• CAST celebrates its 11th anniversary by welcoming Benjamin Skinner, author of A Crime So Monstrous as a keynote speaker for the event.  Award recipients included:  Monica Lozano, publisher and CEO of La Opinión, Julia Ormond, actor and United Nations Ambassador, Bill Watanabe, CAST co-founder and president of Little Tokyo Service Center, and CAST Caucus Survivor Flor.

• CAST received a Proclamation from the City of Los Angeles as a lead expert in Anti-Trafficking Advocacy. The award was presented to CAST on January 11th, Human Trafficking Awareness Day.
• In August 2008, CAST Caucus members participated in a panel discussion on human trafficking that took place at the Border Governor’s Conference, and was led by California’s first Lady Maria Shriver.
• CAST participated in a September 2008 trafficking awareness event as an active member of the LA Metro Task Force.  Executive Director Kay Buck served as moderator for a panel on human trafficking, alongside LA City Councilman Tony Cárdenas. Present as well were several members from the CAST Survivors Advisory Caucus who addressed media questions and mobilized supporters for a Green Card Campaign to provide victims of trafficking with legal status in the United States.
• CAST’s Executive Director was invited to present a seminar on best practices for covering trafficking and slavery to an audience of journalists and advocates with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists, future journalists, and teachers of journalists in Seattle, Washington.  
• The Survivor Advisory Caucus uses their personal testimonies to petition the Department of Homeland Security for more efficiently issued Green Cards to T-Visa holders, resulting in DHS regulations allowing victims to adjust their status and apply for Green Cards in a shorter amount of time.  These regulations fulfilled the congressional intention of the original Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000, as it allowed survivors freedoms such as visiting family and getting better jobs.
• CAST’s advocacy and collaboration with abolitionist groups helped pass the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) in December 2008.   Read the TVPRA Fact Sheet. 

• As a member of the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery Task Force, CAST played an integral role in publishing Human Trafficking in California: Final Report.  Read the report online.

2005

• CAST is appointed to the California Statewide Task Force on Human Trafficking.
• CAST is a founding member of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area Task Force on Human Trafficking, which was formed as a result of CAST establishing the first trafficking task force in the country, the Los Angeles Slavery and Trafficking Task Force, in 1999, which could be expanded when grant money became available to law enforcement agencies. The mission of the Task Force is to improve tactics for identifying and rescuing trafficking victims, provide assistance to victims and prosecute those responsible for human trafficking.

2004

• CAST opens the first and only shelter in the United States exclusively for survivors of trafficking with funding from the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC).
• CAST is awarded the 2004 California Association of Nonprofits (CAN) Innovation Award for excellence in innovation. Innovation is a guiding principle at CAST and CAST’s programs and services model have been studied and replicated nationwide.

2003

• CAST establishes the Survivor Advisory Caucus which serves as a forum for clients to organize and become advocates to inform anti-trafficking policy and services through leadership development.
• CAST and six partner Freedom Network member organizations launches and implements The Freedom Network Institute on Human Trafficking, a national training and technical assistance project with funding from the Department of Health & Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement.

2002

• CAST establishes the Legal Services Program. This program assisted the first T-Visa recipient in the United States.

1999

• CAST establishes the first trafficking task force in the country, the Los Angeles Slavery and Trafficking Task Force, which eventually grows into the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area Task Force on Human Trafficking in 2005.

1998

• Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (CAST) becomes the first established organization in the United States that is exclusively dedicated to serving survivors of trafficking.