We are

Sunita Jain

Anti-Trafficking Initiative

Our Pillars

Racial Justice

Community informed solutions to historical and systemic racial inequity is fully realized as anti-trafficking work and stakeholders invest resources and political capital in racial justice, including criminal and immigration systems change.

Economic Justice

In ten years trafficking is prevented in formal and informal economies and workplaces, which results in poverty reduction and access to systems, support, and services from which vulnerable groups have been historically excluded.

Immigrant Justice

In ten years, the Sunita Jain Anti-trafficking Initiative will have reduced enforcement priorities that are complicit in trafficking and legal protections are in place that reflect the lived experience of vulnerable groups. Immigration systems must provide a legal path to citizenship to prevent trafficking.

Government Accountability

Anti-trafficking laws, policies, and government practices will be guided by the voices of trafficking survivors which urge anti-carceral and public health approaches to preventing human trafficking and hold accountable government actors and agencies that perpetuate, enable, aid and/or abet human trafficking.

Climate Justice

Human Trafficking is codified as part of a climate change narrative as reflected in locally-led climate resilience, evidence-based research, and tangible legal protections.

Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Initiative

The Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Initiative (SJI) at LMU Loyola Law School (LLS) is a collaboration of the Loyola Social Justice Law Clinic (LSJLC) and the LLS Anti-Racism Center (LARC). The Sunita Jain Initiative builds upon LSJLC’s legacy of system transformation through on-the-ground best practices representation of trafficking survivors, and connects this clinical work to LARC’s research and policy innovation, focused on anti-racism, equity and inclusion in the law. The Sunita Jain Initiative will guide the next generation of survivor advocates, to enact anti-trafficking law and policy at the local, state, and national levels that grapple with the root causes of human trafficking such as the systemic subordination of poor communities of color, further marginalized by the intersections of gender, gender identity, sexuality, disability, national origin, religion, and/or immigration status. This first of its kind initiative, housed within LLS whose mission is dedicated to the delivery of educational excellence with a deep concern for social justice, aims to overcome the myriad injustices that subvert trafficking survivors’ access to self-determination and empowerment.

Values

Focus on all forms of human trafficking to ensure the most marginalized are visible
Working in partnership with survivors and their communities
Centered, informed and driven by impacted communities
Adopt an intersectional approach to understanding the experience of human trafficking survivors
Advance policy innovations and systems change utilizing a multi-disciplinary approach
We seek a non-carceral approach to preventing human trafficking
Apply a critical evidence and community informed lens to anticipate and prevent unintended consequences
We strive daily for tangible impact

In Memoriam

Sunita Jain

John Jain, M.D., described his late sister Sunita as “a young woman who was well ahead of her time in her awareness of social justice.” During her life, she joined the ACLU, was an activist, graduated with a degree in women’s studies, and marched for people’s rights. Jain is certain she would have become an attorney working for human rights, specifically women and children. When he thought about the best way to honor her, he chose anti-trafficking, something he feels his sister would believe is an important and urgent issue today.

For Jain, the Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Policy Initiative is a tribute to his sister and the legacy of the person she would have been. He’s also quick to point out his gift is about the critical work being done to support victims and survivors who often have no voice, no way to contact their family, and typically find themselves desolate and isolated.

“This is a call for others to learn about trafficking, to educate people about its presence. Nine out of 10 people don’t realize this is happening under their nose,” he said. “And importantly, it’s a call for people to give time, money, and resources to help.”