Vednita Carter, founder and executive Director of Breaking Free, has extensive experience in developing and planning programs for women and girls who are victims of sex trafficking and exploitation. Breaking Free, founded in 1996, is an Afro-Centric non-profit agency whose mission is to educate and provide services to women and girls who have been victims of abuse and sexual exploitation and need assistance escaping violence in their lives. Breaking Free provides advocacy, direct services, housing, education, and hope to more than 500 women, girls, and their children each year.

Prior to founding Breaking Free, Carter developed and directed the Women’s Services Program at WHISPER (Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt), a pioneering program of its time and also counseled incarcerated women at the Rivers of Life prison ministry program. Her passion has always been for the underserved and often invisible victims of oppression and injustice. Carter has dedicated her life to helping others help themselves. She is a leading expert in the sex trafficking abolitionist movement and a sought-after speaker educating the local community, the FBI and police, members of Congress, international colleagues, the faith community, as well as many other stakeholders in the fight to end sex trafficking.

Carter is a consultant to the United States Department of Justice and was invited to speak at the United Nations on the topic of prostitution and its impact on African American Women (June 1997). In 2010, Carter received the Norma Hotaling Award, an international honor awarded to her for developing model programming for prostituted/trafficked women and girls. Carter’s greatest asset continues to be her ability to connect with and relate to women and girls who have had their lives ripped away from them. They often feel that they are worthless and hopeless individuals. Vednita makes sure they know that that they are worth saving.

CNN Heroes, Human Trafficking, Human Rights, Women, Empowerment, Influential Women, Women's Rights, Black Heritage, Black History Month, African-American Women, Humanitarians, Humanitarian Aid, Social Activism,