Patrick Erlandson
patrick@father-con.org
Founder and Executive Director: Father-Con www.father-con.org
Founder: See it. End it. Film & Arts Festival
1990 Avenida Feliciano, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275
Phone: 310-994-1141

Patrick Erlandson was born and grew up in Los Angeles the 2nd of 7 children. He has been married to his wife Machiko since 1982 and has 2 adult daughters. He was director of Horizon Galleries in Houston, TX before moving to Japan for 8 years where he began teaching English, returning to California in 2000. His wife spent 2 years as a WFWP volunteer in Niger, Africa and after returning to the US the couple opened a thrift store in Lomita, Ca. to support health and education projects in Africa. Patrick took a group to Zambia to support projects working with orphans through CINDI (Children in Distress) and Service for Peace.
In 2010 while working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Los Angeles, USA for UNHCR, Patrick first learned of human trafficking in organs in Egypt from field agents working in Africa which drove him to learn as much as possible about human trafficking globally and domestically. In 2012 he began leading the prevention subcommittee of the Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force. He has become a speaker, and activist, and organized a number of events such as two Youth Exploitation Safety Symposiums, YESS, for the city of Long Beach, founded and organized 4 Father-con conferences, founded See it End it Film & Arts Festival and with an in person event in 2019 and in 2020 held an online 6 day event showing 25 films, with over 50 speakers and presenters from around the world including many survivors of sex and labor trafficking, as well as highlighting numerous organizations, both local and global, effectively working in fighting human exploitation and its root causes.
He assumed leadership of Men Standing Against Trafficking, MSAT, in Long Beach and led a demonstration against human trafficking every month for over 3 years until COVID, on a portion of the track commonly used by traffickers.
Patrick approaches the prevention of human trafficking in two areas: the family especially through fathers and men, and culture through music, film and the arts. He is a board member of Artists 4 Change and works in partnership with the YWCA in prevention of human trafficking and cyber safety. He was the human trafficking advisor for the United Nations Women’s Association in Los Angeles and was co-host of a weekly streamed/podcast at twitch.tv/seeitendit dealing with issues related to the causes that underlie exploitability and demand. He has visited numerous countries from Paraguay, Israel, Zambia, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, Cambodia, Holland and Austria and spoken at conferences and participated in and moderated panels discussing the complex and various aspects of human trafficking. Most recently he presented the case for investing in fathers for the purpose of prevention of trafficking, poverty, violence and school dropout, at the 32nd Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice at the United Nation Office of Drugs and Crime in Vienna, Austria.
He has been a long-time advocate highlighting pornography which fuels the demand for exploited children and the vulnerable and which leads to behaviors that cause self-harm and damage to families. Through Father-Con, which is a platform for informing, inspiring and equipping fathers, father-figures and future fathers, a pathway is created to see the significance and importance of fatherhood and the influence a father can have on the development of resilience and integrity in children and communities. An annual conference is held bringing experts in their fields, access to resources for families and dads and the inspiration to see fatherhood as a source of joy in life for men.
Mr. Erlandson is also an ESL teacher and tutor working with both children and adults primarily from Asia.