Cindy Dyer

Cindy Dyer serves as the United States Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and leads the Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.  In December 2022, the Senate unanimously confirmed her, and President Biden appointed her, to lead the United States’ global engagement to combat human trafficking and support the coordination of anti-trafficking efforts across the U.S. government. Ambassador Dyer is a human rights advocate and lawyer with three decades of experience working at the local, national, and international levels to prevent and respond to human trafficking, sexual assault, and domestic violence. In 2021, she was appointed to serve on the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault in the Military (IRC) that was ordered by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin, III, at the direction of President Biden, to take bold action to address sexual assault and harassment in the military.  Her appointment was extended to assist the Department of Defense with the implementation and oversight of the IRC recommendations. For 12 years, she was the Vice President for Human Rights at Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international NGO advancing women’s leadership.  While at Vital Voices, she worked with local governmental and civil society leaders in more than 25 countries throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Europe to develop and deliver multi-disciplinary trainings and to assess, improve, and implement laws and policies related to human trafficking and gender-based violence. Prior to joining Vital Voices, she served in a presidential appointment as the Director of the Office on Violence Against Women within the U.S. Department of Justice where she served as the liaison between the Department of Justice and federal, state, tribal, and international governments on matters involving violence against women.  She was responsible for developing the Department’s legal and policy positions regarding the implementation of the Violence Against Women Act and overseeing an annual budget of almost $400 million. Ambassador Dyer began her career at the local level serving as a specialized domestic and sexual violence prosecutor in Dallas, Texas for more than 13 years where she prosecuted high profile, complex cases including capital murder, murder, aggravated assault, sexual assault, retaliation, and stalking.  She assisted in creating Dallas County’s specialized Family Violence Courts in 1995 and the county’s specialized Protective Order Court in 1999, which were the first of their kind in the state of Texas.  Ambassador Dyer also served as a weekly hotline volunteer for nine years at a local women’s shelter.  She earned her Bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M and her J.D. from Baylor Law School.