Survivor-Led Collaborative for Effective Policy Change
Amanda Colegrove, MA & Bukola Oriola, BA | September 23 | 3:15-4:15 pm
Topic: Legal, Programming | Knowledge Level: Advanced
The Trafficking Victim Protection Act (TVPA) was enacted over 20 years ago; however, the anti-trafficking work has been heavily focused on sex trafficking with less effort to uncover labor trafficking (Farrell, A., Bright, K., de Vries, I. et al., 2020). The Enitan Story (TES), building on a grant from The Bush Foundation Community Innovation Grant to raise the consciousness of Minnesotans and effect a change at the state level to meet the needs of labor trafficking victims and survivors, began the process of changing legislation. Partnering with state agencies like MDH and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, allowed TES to highlight their expertise while seeking guidance on approaching the legislators. If passed, this bill will create a multidisciplinary workgroup to study the need for a statewide labor trafficking response and provide recommendations to the legislature. Survivor leaders are an important and critical part of efforts to end human trafficking. This project shows how survivor leaders can effectively harness the systems knowledge and experience of state personnel to move the industry and the states forward.
Presentation Objectives:
· Describe the effect of nonprofit and government agency collaboration to influence policy change for better outcomes for victims and survivors of trafficking
· Explain how to combine the strengths of Subject Matter Expert Survivor Leaders and that of state agency staffs for effective collaboration in the anti-trafficking work
· Help Subject Matter Experts learn how to find and choose the correct partners for policy change