Media Centre

Mark Erik Hecht is a lawyer, academic and human rights advocate as well as the co-founder of Beyond Borders.  He is currently legal advisor to the Children’s Aid Society and the senior legal counsel to Beyond Borders/ECPAT Canada. Prior to his recent appointments, he was a visiting professor at the University of Ottawa and an assistant professor and the access to justice chair at the University of Windsor. Mr. Hecht’s primary research interest is international child law, specifically the role and involvement of the private sector in the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Mr. Hecht has sat on the board of trustees for ECPAT International, the Canadian government’s Committee against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Youth, and the patron board of the Alliance for the Rights of Children.  He is the secretary for CINCYR: The Canadian Information Network on Child and Youth Rights.

From 2000-2004, Mr. Hecht was the executive director of Human Rights International, a non-government organization that specializes in human rights networking, research and documentation in the Americas, Asia and Europe. In that capacity, he was a member of the Canadian delegation to the three UN World Congresses against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and key-note speaker at the UNESCO Meeting of Experts in Paris on the subject of child protection on the Internet. He recently acted as moderator at the Human Rights and the Internet colloquium in Canada and the First Conference of the Americas on Child Pornography on the Internet in Brazil.

Mr. Hecht continues to teach human rights law, family law and Internet law at the University of Ottawa and the Université de Sherbrooke. He also teaches international child law at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and Australian National University in Canberra where he is completing his Ph.D. in law.

Speaking topics: Corporate Social Responsibility, International Child Law

Contact Mark