A former technical writer and corporate communications manager in the high-tech industry for over fifteen years, Anne Bissell is the first author/activist and sex industry survivor to bring out the connections between childhood sexual exploitation, pornography, domestic prostitution and international trafficking. "All of these are part of a continuum of sexual crimes that involve turning an actual person into a thing, a commodity. That which becomes a commodity is eventually disposable." Bissell, a prostituted teen and survivor of horrific sexual abuse, understands at a deep level how the sex industry collaborates to enslave both the participants and the customers. The founder of Sex Industry Survivors Anonymous (SISA), and the executive director of the nonprofit Voices for Justice, Bissell is also the author of the autobiographical book, Memoirs of a Sex Industry Survivor. The book, and the Sex Industry Survivors Anonymous groups, is like acid tossed upon the glamour associated with the sex industry. There are now Sex Industry Survivors meetings going all over the United States, and some are being formed in Canada and Russia. In cities such as Detroit, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Houston, there are twenty affiliations between SISA and the Department of Health and Human Services Rescue and Restore Campaign to end sexual trafficking.

Speaking Engagements/Media Appearances

Ms. Bissell is a nationally sought after public speaker and consultant for the media regarding the commercialized sexual exploitation of children and human sexual trafficking. Some of her media appearances include: Dr Phil, Current Affair, Rita Cosby the Big Story, Fox News in Milwaukee, Fox News in Toledo Ohio, over 25 major talk radio shows around the country, and has appeared in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Ventura Star, and The Globe.

2005

Columbia South Carolina, United States Department of Justice, Office of Legal Education, instructor at the Obscenity Investigation and Prosecution Seminar, August.

National City, California, The Bilateral Safety Corridor, The Delinking of prostitution and human sexual trafficking, August.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Keynote Speaker at the Bradley Pavillion for Performing Arts, How the Sex Industry Works and Sex Industry Survivors Collaboration with Rescue and Restore, Department of Health and Human Services.

Los Angeles, California, The Rotary Club, October, Voices for Justice and their campaign to educate about the connections between Childhood sexual abuse and the sex industry, The Silver Braid - Survivors of Sexual Exploitation Network, October.

Houston, Texas, keynote speaker, Hope Street, Inc., The Commercialized Sexual Exploitation of Children - Our Nation's Silent Epidemic, November.

Los Angeles, California, The Bonaventura Hotel, Human Trafficking and Child Abduction Conference sponsored by the Cedars Education and Cultural Foundation, Speaker, November.

Ventura, California, Ventura College, Spoke to the Human Sexuality class regarding the realities of the sex industry, and the glamorization of porn and sexual exploitation. December, 2005.