Karen Wigle Weiss
Karen joined the Board of ECPAT-USA in 2016, following an over thirty-year career as an appellate prosecutor in the greater New York City area, Brooklyn, Nassau County (long Island) and Queens. From 2017 to 2020 she acted as the Secretary for the board of directors. She was on the audit and finance committee from 2016 to 2019, and the governance committee from 2018. In 2018 she created and filled the position of Legislative Liaison to coordinate efforts of the board to support legislation backed by ECPAT-USA. In 2020, she was elected Chair of the Board where she served in this position until 2022. Currently, Karen serves as co-chair of the Governance/ Nominations Committee.
As an Assistant District Attorney she prosecuted hundreds of serious felonies, including child abuse. In addition, Karen was a law clerk for the Honorable Arthur D. Spatt, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Second Department and the United States District Court, Eastern District of New York. In 2013, she began working, pro bono, for ECPAT-USA. In 2015, she authored ECPAT-USA’s report entitled, Steps to Safety: A Guide to Drafting Safe Harbor Legislation to Protect Sex-Trafficked Children. In 2019, she authored ECPAT-USA’s report entitled, Unpacking Human Trafficking, a report on state laws addressing human trafficking awareness posters and employee training in the lodging industry.
From 2013 to 2016, Karen worked, pro bono, for the Anti-Trafficking Initiative at the Center for Battered Women’s Legal Services at Sanctuary For Families. She helped launch a project to assist survivors of sex trafficking to vacate past prostitution-related convictions. For her efforts, she was awarded Sanctuary’s Pillars of Change Award in 2014. She has represented survivors of sex trafficking on motions to vacate convictions that were entered while they were being trafficked. Karen is a 1979 graduate of Boston University School of Law. She has a B.A. from James Madison College at Michigan State University.
