The Current
Advocacy News + Updates
TOP STORY
This spring, advocates across the nation rallied together to speak up for the 40 million people trapped in slavery (Global Slavery Index, 2018). As a movement, thousands of you leveraged the power of digital tools to raise your voices to your members of Congress through tweets, emails and online petitions. Together, we urged Congress to ensure that the State Department’s Program to End Modern Slavery and the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Office are fully funded in the 2020 appropriations bill. Here is a breakdown of the momentum you’ve built:
IJM Mumbai opened in 2000 and has been combating sex trafficking and fervently working to protect the poor from violence for nearly 20 years. In 2018, IJM Mumbai was awarded a grant from the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS) which will play a huge role in expanding our programs to combat these egregious acts of violence.
For a more in-depth discussion, we had the opportunity to learn from Yesudas Naidu, who serves as the Associate Director of Training and Development in the IJM Mumbai Office.
As someone who has been an advocate in the human rights field for more than thirty years, the one constant I count on is the unpredictable nature of working with Congress. 2019 began with a massive challenge for those of us advocating with the government: the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, which just recently ended.
The game has changed. The landscape of influencing Congress is evolving and as advocates with a message that impacts millions lives around the world, we must adapt our tactics to make sure we’re heard.
