Illinois Statewide Task Force on Human Trafficking

I was recently appointed to serve on the Illinois Statewide Task Force on Human Trafficking! Over the past few weeks I have been attending my first meetings for Advocacy & Policy Workgroup and the larger task force and have learned a lot already about the wider anti-trafficking movement in Illinois. The larger task force meeting focused on a legislative advocacy & education training teaching us to how to find our legislator, track bills, and formulate one page policy briefs of your asks (I teach my students how to write these so it was great to see how they are used to inform legislators on human trafficking bills). I also learned how to file witness slips on bills to register my support, opposition, or no position on bills and it is a skill I plan to use in the future to advocate for more survivor informed trafficking legislation in the future!

The Advocacy & Policy Workgroup meeting we talked about monitoring bills in the legislature and different methods for notifying the task force of how they can advocate when an important bill is on the docket. Since a lot of my research is directly related to how policies are adopted and implemented in Eurasia it was really great to see this approach in the United States and how countries vary. I am looking forward to learning more about the policy adoption process and watching in action in my new role on the Illinois Statewide Task Force on Human Trafficking.