Jess Torres

While living in NY, Jess served as a Community Liaison for the NYC Mayor’s Office to End Gender Based Violence. They worked to build community power and capacity with impacted people by listening to community needs and advancing key Administration led priorities. Jess spearheaded a number of initiatives to expand free legal, social, and health services for survivors of GBV through issue campaigns, outreach strategy, and community organizing. They served as MOEDGBV’s representative in eight New York City Housing Authority developments building deep relationships with survivors, grassroots leaders and key community members across various sectors and levels and performed rapid crisis response work. They coordinated all components of large-scale event planning such as inter-agency community resource fairs, town halls, marches, and vigils. They participated in press conferences, attended community meetings to provide information, resources and disseminate education in target neighborhoods by tabling at events, delivering presentations, conducting community canvasses, and training partners and volunteers to expand the effectiveness and reach of MOEDGBV's programs.

Most recently, they served as the Survivor Leadership Program Coordinator at the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) co-chairing the National Survivor Network a collective of over 300 survivor leaders spanning across the U.S. and overseeing the LA-based survivor empowerment group Resilient Voices. Jess also serves on numerous advisory boards. They are a contributor to the United Nations University's Delta 8.7, and have written and co-authored various reports, essays, curricula, poetry, and more. They collaborate with many federal agencies to build diverse federal anti-trafficking initiatives, programs, human rights and public health based legislation. This January Jess’ "Voices of Freedom" interview was highlighted by the Dept. of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Trafficking in Persons and is permanently archived in the Library of Congress.

As a Solis Policy Institute Fellow, Jess successfully co-authored and passed a csec foster care training bill (AB 865) in 2018, an amendment to Title IX (SB 493) in 2019, and in 2021 an amendment to the resource family approval program requiring foster parents to also be trained on how to identify child labor trafficking (SB 584). Other prior policy experience includes working to decriminalize sex work, reduce prison and jail populations, stopping prison expansion, redirecting resources out of the corrections budget, vacatur for survivors of human trafficking, reproductive justice grants for community health centers, access to healthcare for Trans people and freedom for Trans women/folx in ICE detention centers. In addition to policy and organizing work, Jess has also served as a guest lecturer in academic spaces, a keynote speaker, and as an independent trainer and consultant. In these capacities, they have participated in international conferences and symposia, including work with the Freedom Network, HEAL Trafficking and the ACLU. As recognition for their contributions to the anti-trafficking movement, Jess received a ‘Change Maker’ Award from the city of LA, an LA County CSEC Champion award and a Certificate of Recognition from the CA Senate in honor of “Outstanding Community Service” for their work as a trainer with the CA Dept. of Social Service.

Currently, Jess is an expert trainer with Rising International and the Prevention and Addressing Child Trafficking (PACT) SoCal Regional Advisor helping counties participating in the CSEC Opt in Program to develop interagency protocols for case management, planning, and delivery of services utilizing a multidisciplinary teaming approach. Jess is also serving as Artisans Relations Manager at The Little Market, an organization whose mission is to support meaningful income opportunities and dignified labor for the artisans they employ globally. They helped establish the organization's first in-house production team, employing five human trafficking survivors as artisans. They manage the IHPT, overseeing logistics and daily operations and are the lead product developer for the program. Additionally. Jess supports colleagues across the organization by providing training, briefings and as the organization's social justice and ethical storytelling adviser helping to execute integrated communications through collaborative efforts with TLM's marketing team and crafting digital strategy to display TLM's work within the social media landscape.