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Dear John,
While much about the future of life, work, and society post COVID-19 remains murky, we can with some clarity predict the future of sex and labor trafficking in the aftermath: It will get worse. More people will be victimized as joblessness soars. Survivors will have a harder time getting - and staying - out, and rebuilding their lives. Traffickers will thrive in the chaos.
Knowing this, we have to prepare. We can start by ensuring Congress gives local anti-trafficking service providers - shelters, drop-in counseling centers, employment support programs, legal clinics - the resources they need to meet the surge in demand. Call your Senators and Representatives and politely ask them to do the following:
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Ensure that victim service providers funded by the Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services receive continued funding through FY21 and budget appropriations that reflect an increase in need. |
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Reauthorize the Runaway and Homeless Youth Trafficking Prevention Act to ensure that this vulnerable population has resources to survive and thrive in this challenging time. |
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Provide additional resources to support remote operations, increased call volumes, and overhauls of protocols for national service hotlines, including hotlines that support not only trafficking survivors but survivors of sexual assault, child abuse, domestic violence, victims of crime, and more. |
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Support the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights, providing much-needed protections to a group of workers who are extremely vulnerable to trafficking in the best of times and likely to be left out of most of the COVID-19 relief packages. |
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Strengthen congressional oversight of the Department of Labor and Department of Homeland Security as the federal government makes changes to the rules that protect migrant guest workers who provide the essential labor that safeguards our nation’s food supply. |
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The people most often targeted for abuse, exploitation, and trafficking are made vulnerable by other complex hardships - most notably poverty and instability. As the unemployment rate soars, we know financial hardship, unstable living situations, strains on interpersonal relationships, and mental health challenges cannot be far behind. With more people struggling, traffickers will take advantage - offering fake employment opportunities, establishing coercive and violent relationships, and turning desperation into profit.
We also need Congress to fund services that keep people out of trafficking situations in the first place. While the COVID-19 relief bills were a good start, they are only stopgaps to meet immediate needs. Supporting better foster care, affordable transitional housing, stronger labor protections, and expanding other social services that help vulnerable people build the strength they need is supporting anti-trafficking legislation. Let’s do this, the right way.
In Solidarity,
Catherine Chen
Chief Program Officer
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