Advocates across the anti-human-trafficking field are calling on Congress to pass the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act, which would create the first federal pathway for survivors of labor and sex trafficking to clear criminal records resulting from their trafficking experience. This law would break down a massive barrier to survivors’ economic stability and mobility, as having a criminal record — even resulting from victimization — restricts one’s ability to secure housing, employment, and custody rights. 

As a survivor of labor and sex trafficking, I know this impact firsthand. When I was 15 years old, I was coerced to work at a strip club and “adultified” by society. While I was a minor and into adulthood, the man I thought was my protector at the club turned out to be my pimp. Moreover, he knew how to use everything in his power — even my own children — to manipulate me.

At one point, he orchestrated parallel cases against me in both family and criminal courts. Despite knowing that I was a victim of sex trafficking, the family court did not provide me with an attorney and instead awarded him custody of our child — the first case in Texas where a victim (me) had to pay her trafficker child support. In criminal court, I could not afford to go to trial and was forced to plead guilty to a crime I did not commit. 

Meanwhile, when I tried to move forward, I was left struggling to make ends meet. I had served in the military and was later hired by the Sheriff’s Department. But although my colleagues vouched for me, my criminal record prevented me from keeping the job and pursuing a career. Credit reporting agencies and background checks flagged my record, complicating my efforts to obtain credit and find employment.

Fortunately, my custody case ended up being reopened. Everything came out, and I proved my innocence. I started getting my children back, but my criminal record remained a barrier to finding gainful employment to support us. I could only find non-living wage jobs that left us in poverty — and put my children in a vulnerable position where, God forbid, they might end up where I was as a teen. I know all too well that trafficking can be generational: My mother was a victim of trafficking, too.

My family’s story is not the only example. I recently participated in a National Survivor Study, surveying hundreds of trafficking survivors across the country. The results are striking: 42% of respondents report having a criminal record, with 90% reporting that all or some of their arrests were related to their exploitation. These records keep us from getting or keeping a job (69%); getting training, education, or a professional license (63%); getting good housing (59%); and maintaining custody of our children (35%). 

Knowing this reality, I’ve been putting my experience to use. Over the last five years, I have shared my story many times, including in founding a youth-serving nonprofit, Nissi’s Network; running for political office in Houston in 2019; and advocating for SB 315, a Texas law preventing young people under age 21 from working in sexually oriented businesses — with the goal of keeping other girls from ending up where I was. I also want better communication and collaboration between criminal and family courts, as well as more resources and programs for girls and young women who are mothers.

And I support the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act. Passing this bill in Congress would be a huge step in empowering survivors of trafficking — and it could make the path forward easier for someone else in my situation.

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The post Opinion: First Federal Criminal Record Relief Bill will Help Survivors Break Free From the Past and Pursue a Viable Future first appeared on Polaris.

Trafficking survivors aren’t defined only by their exploitation — they play many more roles and carry more identities than survivor. One of the most common identities survivors also hold is mother. Survivors support their families, wanting to see their children thrive. Unfortunately, their ability to care for their children can run into systemic barriers resulting from their trafficking experience. 

Often, survivors who are mothers battle for years to regain custody of their children, fighting against a family court system that doesn’t understand human trafficking, and sometimes even punishes mothers for their experience. Empowering survivors to lead healthy, thriving lives should include the right to raise their children, and a family court system that recognizes survivors as loving mothers and parents.

Custody Battles for Trafficking Survivors

Polaris’s National Survivor Study (NSS) examined systemic failures that survivors reported facing when it came to parenting. The data showed that the family law system does not understand or respond appropriately to survivors of human trafficking. Of those survivor respondents with children:

• 31% stated that the state at some point removed or threatened to remove their children from their custody.
• 36% had a custody battle with someone other than the state.
  • Of these, 51% of those lost custody.

Of those survivor respondents who were engaged in a custody battle with someone other than the state:

• 30% had a custody battle with their exploiter.
  • Of these, 62% lost custody to their exploiter.

 “My children were removed as a direct result of my exploitation which I was upfront about but did not have the vocabulary to explain as trafficking. Social Services should have been able to help me disclose but never once brought up that I could be a victim of trafficking.”

Family Law Failures and Compounding Harm

These results show that survivors regularly lose custody of their children to others and, in some cases, to their trafficker. Losing custody of children can create further barriers to healing for survivors who are mothers, plus cause additional challenges like deepening financial strain by creating massive legal bills. Analysis by The Avery Center showed pro bono legal assistance for survivors is a “legal desert” with little to no assistance available. This risks both the health of the survivor and the safety of her children, who are often placed into the hands of the same trafficker who exploited their mother.

“Before my experience, I had never even been away from my kids for even four days. After my experience. I couldn’t go home because I dealt with shame, trauma, and an inability to cope with what happened to me, causing me to lose custody of all of my children, as well as appear as abandonment. Social Services was given full disclosure of what happened, yet the guardian ad litem was not informed of any of this and just went off the word of people who had physical possession of the children rather than facts.”

When determining custody rights, family courts may look at things like the criminal records of parents, whether safe housing is provided, and the employment status of the parents. Unfortunately, it does not always take into account the circumstances under which a criminal record was obtained, or why a survivor who is a mother might not have long-term housing or a well-paying job. Forty-two percent of all respondents in the NSS reported having a criminal record, and 90% of those indicated their record was a direct result of their trafficking. Having a criminal record can prevent survivors from achieving stable employment or getting safe housing — or participating in their children’s lives.

Rather than family court providing opportunities for survivors to rebuild their family and life, the system often acts as yet another systemic barrier that keeps survivors down and punishes them for their experience. This is a systemic family law failure that needs to be addressed.

Looking Ahead

Survivors have told us they want to thrive, and that includes providing a safe and healthy home for their children. They have also told us one of the most important things they need to thrive is trust — to be able to trust the systems that are supposed to help them, like family court, and to have others trust that survivors know their own needs better than anyone else.

To help survivors become thrivers, and to fulfill their role as mother, family court systems need to drastically transform their knowledge of human trafficking and listen to survivors when they explain their situation. More resources are also needed to help bridge the gap between the survivors’ needs and available pro bono legal assistance. To help us make this case, you can learn more about the issue in our NSS brief. If you are a survivor looking for legal help, you can also contact ALIGHT and view their legal services and resources.

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The post Victim Blaming in Family Court: How Child Custody Impacts Survivors first appeared on Polaris.

Following our series on state policy wins, Polaris is eager to share further updates about what is happening at the federal level. Although these snapshots focus on pending or soon-to-be-introduced legislation and not established laws, they echo a similar theme from the states — the call to prioritize survivor-led policies across a range of relevant issues.

Polaris is committed to amplifying survivors’ voices in our research, recommendations, and relationships with policymakers. You, too, can raise your voice alongside survivors by learning about current efforts and advocating to your elected officials.

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Criminal records relief remains an urgent policy priority across the country. Several states have passed laws giving survivors a pathway to clear criminal records from their trafficking experiences, but some states still restrict relief to specific group classifications, such as sex trafficking victims only or minors only. Three states – Alaska, Iowa and Maine – have no designated relief for trafficking survivors at all. Two other states – Missouri and South Dakota –  only have designated relief for victims who were minors at the time of their exploitation, not adult victims.

Given the clear push in state laws, Polaris and other anti-trafficking advocates have long called for a federal law on criminal records relief for survivors. But although such legislation has been introduced in previous sessions of Congress, no federal law has been passed – leaving federally criminalized trafficking survivors with few options for relief from the weighty burden of carrying a lifelong criminal record.

Without consistent and clear state laws and federal legislation, criminal records remain one of the biggest obstacles that survivors face in rebuilding their lives after exploitation. This was a key finding in Polaris’s National Survivor Study, as 42% of respondents reported having a criminal record, and 90% of those indicated it was directly related to their trafficking.

But listening to survivors means more than just knowing these statistics. Survivors are the experts on how trafficking victims are wrongly criminalized; how existing law enforcement procedures are traumatizing; and how arduous it is to get a trafficking-related record cleared, often taking several years and multiple petitions. Survivors also know what is at stake — how criminal records prevent them from getting a job, finding safe housing, and regaining financial security, putting them at risk of re-trafficking.

Hearing this urgency, Polaris and our partners are calling on Congress to reintroduce the bipartisan Trafficking Survivors Relief Act (TSRA). Last introduced in 2022, this bill would be a significant step toward federal criminal records relief, including the possibility of full vacatur — the highest level of relief that suggests the person never should have been convicted in the first place.

Join us in listening to survivors and taking action to make sure their voices are heard. Contact your representatives today and ask them to reintroduce and support the TSRA. 

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The post Prioritizing Survivor Voices at the Federal Level: Criminal Records Relief first appeared on Polaris.

Policy change takes time and collective effort — and when we reach our goals, it’s important to celebrate milestones and keep the momentum going. In that spirit, this blog is one of a three-part series on recent wins across the country, as states introduce and improve laws that prevent exploitation, support survivors, and hold traffickers accountable.

Polaris has played our part in these successes, sitting on local coalitions, providing testimony, writing letters, and filing slips in support of survivor-centered policies. But this work needs all partners at the table to be successful — and we invite you to join the movement.

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Helping survivors with criminal records avoid further exploitation is an ongoing policy priority for Polaris and the anti-trafficking sector. In our recent National Survivor Study: 

• 42% of survivors reported having a criminal record.
• 90% of those with a criminal record reported that some or all of their arrests were related to their exploitation. 
• Criminal records prevented survivors from getting or keeping a job (69%); getting training, education, or a professional license (63%); getting good housing (59%); and maintaining custody of their children (35% of those with children).

To tackle this barrier at a policy level, Polaris has published two rounds of report cards grading all 50 states and D.C. on their laws enabling survivors to clear criminal records. The latest edition highlights significant progress, plus recommendations for further improvement.

And states are taking action. Several recently passed laws strengthening access to criminal records relief for survivors:

• Illinois has created a pathway for survivors to petition for vacatur, expungement, or immediate sealing of criminal records. It also allows them to attend hearings remotely and file petitions under seal to support healing and prevent future victimization. Notably, the legislator who introduced the bill credited Polaris for raising awareness about the challenges survivors with criminal records face.

• Last year, Louisiana passed the “Michelle Johnson Act,” creating an expungement process for survivors of all ages with no application fees. It is also one of the first states to require district attorneys to report how many survivors are applying for relief and how many requests are accepted or denied.

• Two new laws in Maine aim to reduce overcriminalization of victims and survivors, plus ensure they can rebuild their lives. One provision seals records of prostitution arrests and convictions, preventing discrimination against survivors in housing or employment.

• And in Florida, a new law signed in May exempts survivors’ petitions for expungement from public records laws. This step makes it easier to seek relief and preserves survivors’ privacy and safety. 

How can you help? Check out Polaris’s report cards to learn what still needs to be done in your state. And join in the nationwide effort to pass federal criminal record relief for survivors.

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The post Prioritizing Survivor-Centered State Policies: Improving Criminal Record Relief first appeared on Polaris.

Photo Credit: change.org.

The release of a National Survivor Study (NSS) by Polaris confirmed what many in the anti-trafficking field have always known – trafficking victims are being arrested and charged for crimes at shocking rates. The NSS data found that of 439 participating trafficking survivors, 62 percent had been cited, arrested, or detained by law enforcement at least once. Digging deeper into the data to see if the arrests might have come before or after the trafficking experience, 80 percent said the arrests came while they were being trafficked.

This study supported the claim that in cases like Zephi Trevino’s upcoming trial in Texas, law enforcement and prosecutors are ignoring a victim’s trafficking experience and going ahead with charges. Zephi was 16 when her adult boyfriend started trafficking her. She was later used by her trafficker as part of a scheme to rob a sex buyer. Her trafficker murdered the would-be sex buyer, and Zephi was then charged as an adult with capital murder for being part of the crime. The Dallas district attorney has continued moving forward with the case in spite of receiving evidence that the crime was a result of minor sex trafficking, ignoring the circumstances that she was a trafficking victim under both state and federal law.

Zephi’s case highlights how policies meant to protect trafficking victims can be disregarded when someone does not fit neatly into someone’s definition of a model trafficking victim. Legal aid organizations across the country are consistently challenged to prove the worthiness of survivors in order to clear criminal records that in many cases were a direct result of trafficking. In some cases, trafficking survivors have had to participate in clemency hearings where they were required to ask for forgiveness for crimes they were forced by traffickers to commit.

Concerned members of the public can contact District Attorney John Creuzot and ask him to drop or reconsider the charges. If you would like to sign up to support additional advocacy efforts on survivor record relief, visit our Take Action page.

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The post Study Confirms Trafficking Victims Like Zephi Trevino Are Being Consistently Criminalized first appeared on Polaris.

Telling the real story of human trafficking – the story that acknowledges that human trafficking is the predictable end result of systems built in an unequal world – requires listening to survivors to understand their experiences. However, as a Black survivor of human trafficking myself, I must tell you that the voices of Black survivors have historically been left out of the anti trafficking movement.

If you look at the origins of the anti trafficking movement, this erasure of Black survivors is not all that surprising. Historically, the focus has been on the enslavement of white women, with laws being enforced to prevent “white slavery” as early as 1885. These laws eventually included the Mann Act, otherwise known as the White Slavery Act. This was the law I was prosecuted under, which resulted in me having a criminal record due to crimes my trafficker forced me to commit.

This historical focus on the narrative that white women and girls are the primary victims of human trafficking – the stories involving elaborate abduction schemes and international destinations – neglects the true story that us Black survivors have been telling for decades.

From vulnerability and recruitment to extraction and criminal records, the truth is, to be able to tell the true story of human trafficking, we can no longer separate it from race. 

Victims: The fact is, Black women and girls are more vulnerable to sex trafficking than other races – with 40% of all victims and survivors of sex trafficking found to be Black in a two-year study by the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Recruitment: Traffickers prey on those most vulnerable in our communities. Year over year, National Human Trafficking Hotline data tells us that risk factors like poverty or being in the foster care system make people more vulnerable to human trafficking. Black people are still disproportionately impoverished and disproportionately represented in the foster care system.

Extraction: The anti trafficking movement often talks about rescuing victims – but there is no rescue in a system that criminalizes victims and survivors, especially those that are Black. In 2019, 42% of all prostitution arrests were Black people. 

Criminalization: Not only are Black people more vulnerable to trafficking, but Black survivors are also more likely to hold a criminal record than white survivors due to the adultification and over-sexualization of Black women and girls that has allowed the criminal justice system to see us as criminals and our white counterparts as victims. 

The marginalization of Black voices in the anti-trafficking movement has resulted in white survivors and survivor-led organizations receiving bigger platforms, more media visibility and more funding than those of their Black counterparts. This, in turn, has culminated in inadequate prevention measures, a lack of long-term services, and the re-exploitation of many survivors after they’ve left their initial trafficking situation.  Now, it’s time the anti trafficking movement listens to Black survivors to tell the real story. 

This blog was written by Shamere McKenzie, Hotline Training Manager at Polaris

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The post Criminal Record Relief for Trafficking Survivors first appeared on Polaris.

Criminalizing survivors like Keyana for things their traffickers forced them to do flies in the face of logic. That is why we are supporting new legislation to provide trafficking survivors a pathway to clear federal convictions from their criminal records.

Keyana’s situation also, however, very clearly illustrates that the current federal proposal, while an important step in the right direction, is not enough to ensure all trafficking survivors have a real chance to clear their names and records.

One study found that the vast majority of survivors need this opportunity as more than 90 percent reported having some kind of arrest or conviction on their records as a result of their trafficking experience. Most states have some kind of system in place – however imperfect – to have the records removed, or hidden for some survivors of human trafficking. Polaris has issued a report, soon to be updated, grading these laws and offering concrete steps to make them more useful and fair to survivors.

The Trafficking Survivors Relief Act, recently introduced in the House of Representatives by Reps. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) and Ted Lieu (D-California), includes several components that will be beneficial to survivors. For example, this bill allows for full vacatur – the highest level of relief because it suggests that the person never should have been convicted in the first place. This is particularly important for immigrant survivors as it means undocumented immigrants cannot be deported or denied benefits or relief due to their conviction or arrest for the vacated offense. A companion bill is pending introduction in the Senate and may have some differences. Click here to ask your representatives to support this bill.

What both bills unfortunately have in common is that they exclude many survivors who need and deserve relief. Those excluded include anyone whose conviction included charges related to trafficking of a minor.

This is why Keyana would not be helped by the pending legislation even if it becomes law. Keyana was what is referred to in the commercial sex/trafficking industry as a “bottom.” This term applies to someone who the trafficker/pimp deems responsible for some of the operations of the trafficking business, such as participating in recruitment or setting up “dates.” While the situation creates the illusion that the bottom has a degree of control or autonomy, the reality is that often bottoms are trafficking victims themselves – ones who have been in the trafficking situation so long that they know the ropes and can be “trusted” by the pimp/trafficker not to flee because they no longer see their situation as anything but inevitable.

Eager to escape her trafficker and thinking the FBI could keep her safe, Keyana fully cooperated in the investigation and explained her role in the trafficker’s operation as a bottom and her involvement with his schemes, which included an attempt to exploit a minor. Instead of being protected, that got her arrested. She was only 19 herself. Keyana spent nearly five years in prison and today has to register as a sex offender when she moves to a new state. Her criminal record will haunt her for decades to come.

What happened to Keyana is sadly too common, but the political reality at this moment in time is that any form of federal criminal record relief will likely stall and die in the U.S. Congress unless it explicitly excludes anyone whose case had any connection to a minor victim. A better, more fair process would recognize that these situations are complex and that the line between victim and perpetrator is often misplaced. Keyana deserves a chance to move forward in her life in full, legal freedom. Polaris will both support the pending legislation and continue to work to make it more fair, and more inclusive.

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The post Criminalizing Victims: Trafficking Survivors With Criminal Records Deserve Relief first appeared on Polaris.

There are many things the anti trafficking community does not agree on, and some very deep and very real divisions that make it hard to work together at times. But we agree with the four policy proposals outlined in this blog and we believe they are a starting place for us to come together on policies that can meaningfully improve the lives of people in the sex trade. We hope you will consider them, and that this is the beginning of a dialogue. 

As the blog highlights, arresting people directly selling sex does not help anyone and in fact, harms people in trafficking situations. It should be illegal for law enforcement to request or receive sexual services under the guise of an investigation; people directly selling sex should be able to report crimes against them without fear of arrest or prosecution and trafficking survivors should have a clear, workable pathway to have their records cleared of criminal charges related to their trafficking.

Read more if you are interested, and let’s start seeing how we can make progress together.

The post Finding Solutions and Solidarity first appeared on Polaris.