SJI support has enabled the Center for Public Policy Studies/The National Judicial College/Center for Court Innovation (CPPS/NJC/CCI) to recently form a Human Trafficking and the State Courts Collaborative focused on 4 strategic priorities:

• Increasing understanding and awareness about the challenges faced by state courts in dealing with cases involving trafficking victims and their families, and traffickers;
• Developing and testing state and local approaches for assessing and addressing the impact of human trafficking victims and defendants in the state courts;
• Enhancing state and local court capacity to improve court services affected by human trafficking-related cases processing demands; and,
• Building effective national, state, and local partnerships for addressing the impacts of human trafficking case processing in the state courts.

The SJI Board established Human Trafficking and the State Courts as a Priority Investment Area on October 1, 2012.

This month, theNational Association of Women Judges (NAWJ) and Legal Momentum/National Judicial Education Program (NJEP) officially joined the Collaborative. NAWJ has made human trafficking a priority over the past 2 years, and with SJI support, has been able to offer educational programming to their membership on this critical issue. With a recent SJI grant (SJI-13-E-090), NJEP will add a module on human trafficking to it popular course, Intimate Partner Sexual Abuse: Adjudicating This Hidden Dimension of Domestic Violence Cases. This web course has proved to be highly successful, as over 13,000 learners have taken the course. It is available free of charge at www.njep-ipsacourse.org.

SJI appreciates the commitment of NAWJ and Legal Momentum to supporting the state courts on this issue, and commends both organizations for joining the Human Trafficking and the State Courts Collaborative.