How Decreasing the Nation’s Social Safety Net Increases the Risk of Trafficking and Exploitation

In the past year, much federal and budget legislation has centered on significant cuts to programs like SNAP (food stamps), Medicaid, TANF (welfare), and housing assistance, along with attempts at instituting stricter work requirements for each of these programs. These changes, in addition to reviving damaging stereotypes about people and families who rely on government assistance, have made it much more difficult to both quality for and maintain access to these lifesaving programs. Nearly absent from the discussion on the impact of this purposeful and significant policy shift has been decreasing access to these programs puts people at higher risk for human trafficking and various other forms of exploitation. Please join the HTPP & MVLS along with our guest panelists as we provide the necessary data-driven background to understand exactly how these programs save lives, and how cutting them and/or making them more difficult to access puts the nation’s most vulnerable citizens at higher risk of trafficking and exploitation.