A Juneau-based advocate for domestic violence survivors and incarcerated women was appointed to the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking this week.
Christina Love is a specialist with the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, and works to connect incarcerated people with support in Juneau.
The advisory council suggests federal policies on how to combat and prevent human trafficking.
“Christina Love, a proud Alaskan Native, brings to the council a deep commitment to systems change and advocacy for marginalized and targeted populations based on her own experience as a survivor of domestic violence, sexual assault and trafficking, a former formerly incarcerated individual in long term recovery and as a person who has experienced homelessness and disabilities,” said Jennifer Klein, the director of the U.S. Gender Policy Council, at the White House on Tuesday.
Love is Alutiiq and said she plans to focus on substance use and mental health as factors that contribute to the risk of being trafficked.
“I know that’s something I’m going to be focusing on in my two year term,” she said. “It’s something that as I’ve been following the work with the different reports it’s absolutely something that is missing.
Love served a term on the Not Invisible Act Commission, a national taskforce formed in 2020 to address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples. She said that her perspective as a survivor informed how she advised the commission to focus on the intersections of gender, race, incarceration and substance use.
She wants to bring those focuses to the human trafficking advisory council, too. She said her own lived experience, and her work as an advocate for women currently incarcerated, will inform her work on this council.
“There’s a huge connection between the trauma to incarceration pipeline, and then from incarceration not having access to resources, like employment, like housing, like identification, not having family support is what leads people to — not being vulnerable, but being targeted,” Love said. “They’re vulnerable because they’re targeted.”
The council is made up of 14 trafficking survivors, and each seat is appointed by the current U.S. president and holds a two year term.
Disclosure: Christina Love occasionally hosts episodes of Juneau Afternoon.
