Past and current members of the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, including NAE President Leith Anderson, wrote a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry and Senate and House leadership encouraging support for legislation that would upgrade the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons to a State Department Bureau.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

We are writing to express our strong support for current legislation that would enhance the United States anti-trafficking policy by upgrading the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons to a State Department Bureau headed by an Assistant Secretary of State.

We represent members of both the current and previous President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. As members of the current President’s Advisory Council, we studied the issue of domestic and international trafficking for the past year and issued a report with recommendations to President Obama. One of the recommendations was to upgrade the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons to a Bureau.

Our April 2013 Report states: “The Council appreciates and acknowledges not only the diplomacy and monitoring carried out by J/TIP, but the level of expertise and innovation the Office brings to the anti-trafficking movement. This Council believes that it is vitally important that the State Department’s J/TIP be elevated to a State Department Bureau, on equal footing with the Regional Bureaus and other priority issues for this Administration. Making J/TIP a Bureau would improve collaboration with the Regional Bureaus, Embassies, and international interlocutors.”

We are grateful that legislation has been introduced in the House and Senate entitled, “The Human Trafficking Prioritization Act,” to upgrade the Office to a State Department Bureau headed by an Assistant Secretary of State. This simple redesignation, which does not involve additional bureaucracy or expense, will give J/TIP and its leadership access to the Secretary of State and parity with regional Assistant Secretaries. This upgrade is required for the issue of slavery eradication to receive the attention it requires.

As leaders of faith based and community organizations, we respectfully urge you to support this legislation, which sharpens the United States’ most precious diplomatic tool. The men and women who staff and lead the J/TIP Office are the nation’s leading experts on modern day slavery. While we understand that anti-trafficking concerns may sometimes be preempted by other U.S. interests, we believe that it is essential that J/TIP’s leadership have a seat at the table where key decisions on diplomacy and strategy are being developed and implemented.

We respectfully urge you to take any action in your authority to elevate the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons to a State Department Bureau.

Sincerely,

Leith Anderson
President, National Association of Evangelicals

Angela Glover Blackwell
Founder and CEO, Policy Link

Bishop Mark Hanson
Presiding Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in American

Lynne Hybels
Co-founder, Willow Creek Community Church

The Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop, Episcopal Church

Miaohong Hsiangju Liu
Buddha’s Light International Association

Maria Nagorski
Executive Director, Fair Chance DC

Rabbi Julie Schonfeld
Executive Vice-President, Rabbinical Assembly

Barbara Williams Skinner
President, Skinner Leadership Institute

Elder Steven Snow
First Quorum of the Seventy, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Susan K. Stern
Chair, President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships

Archbishop Demetrios Trakatellis
Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

Sister Marlene Weisenbeck
Past President, Leadership Council of Women Religious

Reverend Elder Nancy L. Wilson
Moderator, Metropolitan Community Churches

Rev. Noel Castellanos
CEO, Christian Community Development Association (CCDA)

Dr. Arturo Chavez
President, Mexican American Catholic College

The Reverend Canon Peg Chemberlin
Immediate Past President, National Council of Churches of Christ-USA

Fred Davie
Executive Vice President, Union Theological Seminary

Dr. Joel C. Hunter
Senior Pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed

Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie
Bishop, African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church

Nancy Ratzan
Immediate Past President, National Council of Jewish Women

Rabbi David Saperstein
Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Jim Wallis
President and CEO, Sojourners

The Reverend Dr. Sharon E. Watkins
General Minister and President, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada

*Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only