Lynnsey O'Rourke

Lynnsey O’Rourke is a Hotline Supervisor at the National Human Trafficking Hotline (NHTH), operated by Polaris. Lynnsey acts as a primary decision-maker on incoming cases and directs the hotline responses to crisis cases. Lynnsey manages a team of victim advocates that respond to trafficking cases through the hotline and supports the ongoing training and development of staff. She uses her expertise in anti-trafficking work to contribute to policies and protocols that improve the NHTH’s case response. Lynnsey has also served as a member of the Gender, Romantic, and Sexual Minorities working group which focuses on improving the organization’s capacity to support LGBTQIA-identifying staff members and trafficking survivors. 

Named after the North Star, an historical symbol of freedom, Polaris works to reshape the systems that make sex and labor trafficking possible and profitable in North America. For more than a decade, Polaris has assisted thousands of victims and survivors through the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline and built the largest known U.S. data set on the crime. With the guidance of survivors, and working with public and private-sector partners, Polaris uses data to understand and improve the way trafficking is identified, how victims and survivors are assisted, and how the organization can prevent abuse at the scale of the problem.