E. Benjamin Skinner

About E. Benjamin

• I was born in Wisconsin and grew up in both Wisconsin and Northern Nigeria, where my father worked.
• I graduated with a degree in sociology from Wesleyan University in Connecticut.
• After college, I moved to New York and spent a couple of years working as a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations.
• A mentor encouraged me to look into the issue of modern-day slavery—I knew little about it at the time, but took it on because it would allow me to travel and see places that most people don’t get to.
• I started by interviewing slavery survivors that had escaped to the U.S. and then traveled internationally to continue my investigation.
• An assignment for Newsweek International took me to Sudan—by the end of my time there, I had enough of a story assembled in my head to secure a book advance from a publisher.
• By this time, I was incredibly passionate about getting this story out—as an investigative writer, I infiltrated trafficking networks, slave quarries, illegal brothels, and urban child markets.
• My book “A Crime So Monstrous” about modern-day slavery came out in March 2008.