Heavy sighs filled the room as Mei Mei Ellerman asked her audience to close their eyes and imagine a nine-year-old girl coerced into prostitution. Ellerman, a resident scholar of the Women's Studies Research Center, delivered a presentation on prostitution trafficking Thursday at the center's lecture hall in Epstein. Ellerman gave her presentation alongside WSRC scholar Louise Lopman who spoke about female sweatshop workers. The panel was held in conjunction with an exhibition at the Kniznick Gallery called "Geobodies: A Question of Boundaries," that featured artistic expressions of activism.

"That was my goal, to leave the audience with powerful images," Ellerman told those in attendance when they opened their eyes. "I am firmly committed to spreading. awareness."

Lopman spoke about her extensive research in El Salvador, interviewing women on the streets and in maquilas-sweatshops in Mexico and Central America. In addition to the visuals used to illustrate her presentation, audience members received an abundance of handouts containing pictures, statistics and articles.

Lopman compared the harsh working conditions experienced by female sweatshop workers to that of women working in Lowell, Mass. textile factories during the 19th century. She said El Salvadoran women work long hours and receive as little as 59 cents per hour.

The lecture hall was filled to capacity with some standing against walls all the way to the back while others found space on the floor.

A large portion of the audience was students of Prof. Pamela Allara (FA) who hosted of the panel discussion and served as curator of the exhibition.

Libby Brockman '07 said she was surprised by the research presented, and by the fact that Ellerman and Lopman conducted the research themselves.

"I was impressed with that," she said. "They definitely revealed a lot of stuff that I didn't know. Even though I had to go for class, I think that both of their issues were really important."

Natalya Ban '08 expressed concern about the numbing effect that so many visual representations of oppression can have on people.

"We see these images of the women in the sweatshops and I think seeing them over and over again makes us less sensitive to what they really mean," she said,

Ellerman is also a member of the Polaris Project, an organization co-founded by her son Derek Ellerman that is dedicated to ending the practice human trafficking.