Kansas University and Gov. Sam Brownback next week will co-sponsor a conference examining modern-day slavery and human trafficking, KU announced Thursday.

The first-ever Kansas Conference on Slavery and Human Trafficking will include presentations from researchers and government officials and seek to identify potential research and education efforts for KU. It will be Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 at the Kansas Union.

The conference will open at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 31 in Woodruff Auditorium, where remarks by Brownback will be followed by a keynote presentation by anti-slavery activist Kevin Bales, who co-founded an organization called Free the Slaves that aims to end all human slavery within the next 25 years. That session will be free and open to the public, with no registration required.

The conference’s second day will run from 8:15 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 1 on the Union’s fifth floor. Various researchers and government officials will make presentations, including a keynote speech by Alison Kiehl Friendman, deputy director of the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. The second day is also free and open to anyone, but pre-registration is required.

Online registration and a complete schedule are available on the website for KU’s Institute for Policy and Social Research, ipsr.ku.edu.