Mary C. Ellison currently serves as Director of Policy for Polaris Project. In addition to her years as a human rights lawyer, Ms. Ellison brings more than ten years of experience as a manager, fundraiser, trainer, and technical consultant to her work at Polaris Project. At Polaris Project, Ms. Ellison leads the work to advance state and federal policy related to the crime of human trafficking - creating protections for victims while seeking accountability for human traffickers and others that contribute to human trafficking.
Prior to joining Polaris Project Ms. Ellison served as a staff attorney for The Advocates for Human Rights. In that capacity she helped build a coalition to combat sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation in Minnesota through participation in the statewide Human trafficking Task Force. Together with the Task Force members, Ms. Ellison played a key role in drafting, advocating for, and testifying about critical amendments to Minnesota’s human trafficking law, which was unanimously passed and signed into law on May 21, 2009.
Ms. Ellison is a co-author of the Sex Trafficking Needs Assessment for the State of Minnesota (September, 2008); and two components of the legislation module of a UNIFEM Global Virtual Knowledge Centre: Advocating for New Laws or the Reforming of Existing Laws and Drafting Specific Legislation on Violence Against Women and Girls – Sex Trafficking of Women and Girls.
Ms. Ellison has worked on domestic violence legal reform in Central and Eastern Europe where she reviewed and provided commentary on the domestic violence laws of several countries. She also brings experience as a judicial law clerk, law clerk in a state public defender’s office, and intern with the Refugee and Immigrant program at The Advocates for Human Rights.
Ms. Ellison earned her law degree from William Mitchell College of Law. She is admitted to practice in Minnesota. Ms. Ellison graduated cum laude from St. Olaf College with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Family Studies with a concentration in Women's Studies. She also earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Colorado State University. She is a published poet and essayist and the editor of two oral history collections.
Ms. Ellison’s interest in social justice and human rights was initially ignited during an educational trip to El Salvador and Nicaragua. Ms. Ellison has also worked with inner-city youth, developmentally disabled adults, refugees and immigrants, and indigent adults and juveniles facing criminal charges, all of which inform her current work.
