Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle) has been recommended by the Senate Democratic Caucus to retain her chairmanship of the Senate Labor, Commerce & Consumer Protection Committee and her seats on the Senate Ways & Means Committee, Senate Rules Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee.
In addition to those roles, Kohl-Welles said she will continue to prioritize human-trafficking issues on which she has worked over the last 10 years, as well as child sexual exploitation and abuse and the protection of worker rights.
Kohl-Welles has worked since 2002 to eliminate human trafficking; 10 of her anti-trafficking bills in that time have been enacted into law. Many of her bills were the first of their kind in the United States, including addressing labor and sex trafficking, and commercial sexual abuse and exploitation of minors.
Additional areas Kohl-Welles intends to focus on, she said, include expanding the ability of school personnel across the state to better detect and respond to incidents of sexual abuse of children, wage theft and other illegal practices that undermine worker compensation and benefits.
Kohl-Welles is a member of the University of Washington Women’s Center’s Anti-Trafficking Task Force, which is planning a Jan. 2013 conference, “Human Trafficking in an Era of Globalization: Forced Labor, Involuntary Servitude and Corporate & Civic Responsibility.”