Transgender people exist within the perfect storm of vulnerabilities that human traffickers use to exploit them. For example, trans people often lack familial support, are harassed for simply being who they are or supporting others like them, and experience rejection from services and opportunities – like housing and medical care. Traffickers take advantage of these needs and vulnerabilities and exploit them to maintain control over their victims. Research has even found that LGBTQ+ youth are significantly more likely to be sex trafficked than their straight counterparts.

My name is Ms. Mercy Gray (she/her) of the Bulaceño and Kapampangan peoples from the Philippine Islands. I am a survivor of much violence: colonization, domestic violence, assault, kidnapping, sexual assault, gang-based violence, human trafficking, and as an indigenous transgender woman living in America. This is my story.

As a child, I was groomed with narcotics and trafficked for sex at the age of 14 out of the states of Washington, Oregon, and Nevada. I first experienced houselessness at the age of 15 and survived in the commercial sex trade for ten years after that.

I first met my trafficker as a young scrawny gay boy from a military family living in a military town. I come from a conservative Texan Catholic background and met my trafficker while in the closet. Whether I wanted to be or not, I was, and remain 2SLGBTQIA+ (Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/ Questioning, Intersex, Asexual). The lack of awareness and discussion about these communities played a role in making me more vulnerable to trafficking and led me to look for answers from exploitative adults on the internet when I was only 10 years old. Having been molested earlier in my life and becoming sexually active at that age, I had lots of questions that many grown men had answers to. In searching for answers about my experience and identity, I met and was groomed by my 32-year-old trafficker.

Later on in my life, after nearly two decades of finding myself in the aftermath of being trafficked and finding all my own resources to heal from it, I began medically transitioning my gender. Despite 10 years of experience in social work and a bachelor’s degree, I found myself facing the same employment issues many other transgender people face: discrimination with a sudden new inability for gainful employment. I quickly went from working a permanent, full-time government job in law enforcement, making $37.00/hr, to needing to sell sex to survive and using the substances I was groomed to use as a child. I quickly found myself feeling 14 again. Scared, in the back of some strange man’s car, it didn’t matter how loud I could scream – no help would come for me.

Quicker yet, I found myself without access to the gender-affirming care medications, providers, and surgeries I needed and had already established. I met an older woman who said she would help me and provide me with the hormones I needed. Out of necessity, I found myself sleeping on her floor – next to a stripper pole and massage table. But these street hormones made me incredibly ill, causing a serious infection that left permanent damage and scarring on my body.

I began to need this woman to survive. I experienced a refusal of medical care and prescription access and was treated disrespectfully and poorly by medical professionals – an experience common to many transgender and gender non-conforming people. As a result of my dysphoria, recent trauma from my boyfriend at the time, and a lifetime of abuse, I resorted again to the narcotics I had been groomed to consume as a child for the purposes of sexual acts for items of value. This woman quickly had a solution for this too, providing me with men to sleep with, narcotics to do so, and fake promises of job and other opportunities.

This is what it looks like to become a statistic. Despite my education, career, and the tremendous work I had put in to overcome my childhood trauma, the discrimination I experienced pursuing my gender identity caused me to fall into a bad way.

This is the story of so many transgender survivors across America – total systems failure. We face stark discrimination on all fronts. One U.S. Transgender Survey found that 50% of transgender women had traded sex for income. Despite this, transgender survivors are often excluded from programs that exist to help human trafficking survivors. In my experience, many housing programs, medical services, and first-response resources either do not accept transgender people or are not culturally responsive and trauma-informed to any 2SLGBTQIA+ person.

Facing discrimination on multiple fronts, 2SLGBTQIA+ people are both vulnerable to trafficking and face barriers when seeking assistance of any kind. Support systems and inclusive policies are needed to reduce this community’s vulnerability to traffickers and increase our access to services after exiting our trafficking situations. Without basic needs being met, 2SLGBTQIA+ people face a greater risk of returning to trafficking situations.

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The post The 2SLGBTQIA+ Community Needs More Support Systems and Inclusive Policies to Reduce Vulnerabilities to Trafficking 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.

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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Sex trafficking is terrible at any age, but stories about child victims and survivors in particular tend to draw more attention. This carries over into lawmaking trends, where policies geared to protect children naturally gain more momentum.

In Illinois, the Prevent Unfair Sentencing of Youth Act gives judges more discretion in sentencing children found guilty of harming their abusers. It requires judges to consider factors such as involvement in the child welfare system and history of sexual exploitation, and it creates a pathway for judges to depart from mandatory minimums or return the case to juvenile court.

Growing support for laws like Illinois’ not only helps victims and survivors of child sex trafficking but also represents a step toward racial justice. Black girls and women are overrepresented among victims of sex trafficking and overcriminalized by the criminal legal system, including in situations where they have defended themselves against their exploiters.

At other times, the desire to protect children can obscure the nuances involved in fighting human trafficking. California passed a law classifying sex trafficking of children as a serious felony under the state’s “three strikes” law, enabling longer sentences for repeat offenders and aiming to dissuade traffickers from exploiting children.

The bill was highly contested — including by advocates who recognized that such a law could be used to prosecute victims and survivors caught in cycles of trafficking themselves. With these concerns at the forefront, dissenting assembly members ultimately passed the bill but with specific amendments to protect victims and survivors from being criminalized under the new law.

How can you help advance nuanced, survivor-centered policymaking? Join us in continuing to push for relief benefiting survivors of all ages, including those whose criminal records are the result of their trafficking experience as a child.

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The post Prioritizing Survivor-Centered State Policies: Spotlight on Child Sex Trafficking first appeared on Polaris.

For Philadelphia, one of our initial focus cities under the initiative, we created this action guide with and for local stakeholders to help prevent trafficking of the local vulnerable youth population.

The post Action Guide: Trafficking Prevention for Youth in Philadelphia first appeared on Polaris.

For most Americans, it’s normal to assume that your employer will treat you with dignity and respect, regardless of the industry. It’s not radical to expect safe and fair working conditions. 

But that’s not always the case if you are a foreign worker with a temporary work visa, like the H-2A or H-2B. In 2021, more than 250,000 workers were granted work permits through the H-2A visa program, which brings essential migrant workers into the US agriculture sector. Almost 90% were Mexican nationals. 

These visa holders accept seasonal employment in the US, hoping that they will receive fair wages and be treated with the same dignity expected by the national workforce. But labor violations, back wages, and poor working conditions are all too frequent according to media reports and Polaris’s own experience operating the National Human Trafficking Hotline and other survivor-centered programs. 

Polaris has been raising public awareness of exploitative conditions under temporary work visa programs. We have been calling out the lack of accountability for bad employers who find loopholes and take advantage of workers who desperately need jobs to provide for their families and communities. 

Now Polaris is calling for the financial resources to ensure the Department of Labor (DOL) can fulfill its mandate to protect workers and enforce labor law. The DOL has made it clear that they do not have the funding to monitor employers and ensure safe and humane conditions for workers, including those with H-2A visas. The numbers testify to the need: In 2018 there was only one labor inspector for every 175,000 workers. 

The DOL is asking for $2.3 billion from the US administration for its worker protection agencies and efforts. In support of this request, Polaris and our partners Justice in Motion and the National Employment Law Project ask the Committee of Appropriations to approve the following items in the 2024 budget:

• $340.953 million to restore and strengthen the Wage and Hour Division’s (WHD’s) enforcement capacity, an increase of $67.678 million and 389 full-time equivalent (FTE) personnel. 
• $25.968 million to bolster WHD efforts in key areas like protecting the rights and wages of essential workers, ensuring prevailing wage protections, and combating child labor.
• $2.5 million to help enforce protections of temporary foreign workers and expand outreach efforts alongside the rise in worker visa programs.
• $199.641 million across general and trust funds to adequately resource the Office of the Solicitor to enforce labor and employment laws and keep pace with the DOL’s urgent enforcement agenda.

Without enough inspectors, outreach staff, and other resources at the DOL, we will continue to read about child labor in meat packing industries, back wages owed to workers, and other violations. Budget cuts will endanger workers, leaving them vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation. But we can prevent these situations by properly and fully funding the right offices to ensure foreign workers are treated with dignity, fairness, and respect while working in the US. You can help make this happen by contacting your Congress members today. 

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The post The Fight for Fair Work Needs Full Funding for the Department of Labor first appeared on Polaris.

UPDATED APRIL 2025

Many survivors of human trafficking are also survivors of sexual abuse.

During April’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month, we are exploring the intersection of sexual abuse and human trafficking.

Human trafficking is defined as the use of force, fraud, or coercion to compel a person into commercial sex acts or labor against their will. Sexual abuse can be a method of control that traffickers use – in both sex and labor trafficking situations. We looked at contacts to the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline from 2015 through 2022 and examined the number of victims who experienced sexual abuse as a method of control during their trafficking situation. In situations where force, fraud, or coercion was known, we found that:

• 18% of all the victims who experienced combined sex & labor trafficking experienced sexual abuse as a method of control (826 victims).
• 11% of all sex trafficking victims experienced sexual abuse as a method of control (5,892 victims).

From January 2020 through November 2022, we found that 10% of sex trafficking victims who contacted the National Human Trafficking Hotline experienced sexual abuse (6,909 victims), either prior to their trafficking experience or as a method of control during the trafficking experience.

Sexual abuse is also a factor that can make people more vulnerable to human trafficking. Someone who has past experiences of sexual abuse, violence, or trauma could be lured in and taken advantage of by a trafficker who is exploiting their need for something like protection or love. Of the contacts made to the Trafficking Hotline from 2015 to 2021 where a risk factor or vulnerability was known, we found that:

• 4% of all the victims who experienced combined sex & labor trafficking experienced sexual abuse prior to their trafficking situation (107 victims).
• 6% of all sex trafficking victims experienced sexual abuse prior to their trafficking experience (1,590 victims).

There is also a correlation between child sexual abuse and human trafficking. Polaris recently conducted and published the National Survivor Study, a research project designed to shed light on the experiences of human trafficking survivors in the U.S. When researching the conditions that make people vulnerable to trafficking the study found that 84 percent of participants experienced sexual abuse at some point in their childhood.

Sexual abuse and human trafficking are not isolated issues. The correlation between sexual abuse and human trafficking is disturbing and alarming, but not surprising. Sexual abuse can be a vulnerability that traffickers exploit and a way for traffickers to assert control over victims. Human trafficking cannot be left out of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and sexual assault cannot be excluded from the conversation about human trafficking.

Resources

National Human Trafficking Hotline: Call 1-888-373-7888 or text 233733
National Sexual Assault Hotline: Call 800-656-HOPE (4673)
Resources for survivors of sexual assault (National Sexual Violence Resource Center)

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Help fix the broken systems that make trafficking possible so we can prevent it from happening in the first place.

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The post Sexual Assault Awareness Month: How Does Human Trafficking Fit In? first appeared on Polaris.

The post In Harm’s Way: How Systems Fail Human Trafficking Survivors first appeared on Polaris.

For Louisville, one of our initial focus cities under the initiative, we created this action guide with and for local stakeholders to help prevent trafficking of the local homeless youth population.

The post Action Guide: Trafficking Prevention for Homeless Youth in Louisville first appeared on Polaris.

This blog post has been updated to reflect Ghislaine Maxwell’s sentence.

High-profile human trafficking cases get a lot of attention because they seem unique. In some cases, that’s because of the status of the perpetrators, or because of the lavish lifestyles they show to those who would never otherwise see them, or the massive sums of money involved. But look behind the expensive scenery, or the bold-faced names, and you will often find that the strategies traffickers use are the same, whether they are luring victims to a Miami mansion or somewhere a lot less obviously enticing.  

Such is the case surrounding Ghislaine Maxwell, who was found guilty of sex trafficking, transporting a minor to participate in illegal sex acts and two conspiracy charges. She has now been sentenced to 20 years in prison, for helping Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse girls from the 1990s to the 2000s. The most significant difference between this case and most situations of human trafficking is that she was held accountable. Trafficking prosecutions remain fairly rare compared to the actual instances of trafficking in the United States. But the actual scenario that Maxwell participated in, while glamorous on the outside, is actually pretty typical.

Understanding the Role of Grooming 

The issue of grooming is a key point in the case — and in sex trafficking situations across the country. Traffickers target and build trust with youth and adults in positions of vulnerability, then create dependence by seemingly meeting their needs. Traffickers can then subtly promote the idea that selling sexual services is normal, acceptable, necessary, and even freely chosen, even for children. 

The accusations against Maxwell mirror this process: 

• Targeting Victims: Traffickers are adept at noticing people in need. Epstein was said to target the vulnerable and marginalized, including those from disadvantaged or unstable families, in the foster care system, at risk of or experiencing homelessness, or with drug habits. Victims say Maxwell managed this recruitment, encouraging victims themselves to peer-recruit others in desperate circumstances.

• Gaining Trust: Traffickers build relationships with victims, establishing trust by appearing to listen and care deeply. Victims recall Maxwell initially befriending them; asking them about their lives, schools, and families, taking them to the movies or on shopping trips. Being a woman, Maxwell put victims more at ease. 

• Meeting Needs: Once they gain trust and know victims’ needs, traffickers offer a solution — while also wielding the unspoken power to take away what is offered. Victims say Maxwell promised them jobs or encouraged them to accept Epstein’s assistance in paying for clothes, education, or travel; as a result, victims felt indebted to them.

• Normalizing Exploitation: Over time, traffickers condition their victims to believe exploitation is normal. The indictment states, “Having developed a rapport with a victim, Maxwell would try to normalize sexual abuse for a minor victim,” by means such as discussing sexual topics and being present for sexual interactions with Epstein.

Seeking Elusive Accountability 

Regardless of the outcome, Maxwell’s sentencing can never fully heal the harm caused by her, Epstein, and the many other men who trafficked and sexually assaulted these girls. Epstein, whose 2019 death has been ruled a suicide, will never face his own charges. Although Maxwell’s trial undoubtedly shed light on his crimes, survivors and allies feel that Epstein himself has escaped accountability for his actions.

Survivors of Epstein’s abuse emphasized to Polaris that Epstein isn’t the only one to escape responsibility for his actions. Besides Maxwell, they have identified additional perpetrators who sexually exploited them in conjunction with Epstein. To date, none of these people have been criminally charged. Unfortunately, lack of accountability, too, is characteristic of trafficking. Although fame and wealth certainly confer advantages in avoiding legal consequences, traffickers and sex buyers at every level often escape justice for their crimes.

Sometimes justice is hindered by the justice system itself. Many of Epstein’s victims felt silenced, whether because of the powerful figures involved or because they were manipulated into believing they chose to participate in sexual abuse. Moreover, some feared they could face legal consequences if they cooperated with prosecutors because of a Florida law making “child prostitution” a crime — for the child, not the adult. There is no such thing as child prostitution under federal law. But state laws — and society — have both acted otherwise.

Fighting for Justice 

Polaris believes that pursuing accountability for both traffickers and buyers is the right thing to do. That’s why our Big Fight on Sex Trafficking aims to shift legal accountability away from punishing victims and potential victims and onto those who are exploiting them. Legal systems and cultural narratives are slow to change, but Polaris is partnering with survivors and stakeholders to advocate for criminal justice and societal transformation.

We are also fighting to prevent sex trafficking from happening by expanding the safety net for vulnerable people to reduce their risk of being targeted in the first place. This looks different in every community. For some, it could mean creating housing that provides stable homes for youth who have suffered trauma. Or it could mean ensuring there are dedicated safer spaces with supportive services for LGBTQ+ youth, or advocating for policies that support youth aging out of foster care.

These efforts go far beyond the Maxwell trial or any single sex trafficking case. Following survivors’ lead, Polaris is working toward a world where all traffickers and buyers are held accountable for the harm they cause — and ultimately a world in which the powerful cannot prey on the vulnerable for pleasure and profit.

Read our statement on Maxwell’s sentencing here.

The post Tracing the Patterns of Trafficking in the Ghislaine Maxwell Trial first appeared on Polaris.

Human traffickers profit from preying on people’s vulnerabilities, offering them something they want or need based on what they lack, be it love, housing, money, drugs and so forth.

That’s important to note when thinking through the trafficking case against R&B singer R. Kelly. He was in a position to offer something more glamorous, and certainly less common, than most traffickers, but the elements of trafficking were the same. For some, he offered the promise of a career in the music industry; a dream come true; wish fulfillment at a level few young people can resist. For others, he dangled the idea of a relationship or family. What he got in exchange was sex, obedience, subservience, whatever he wanted, from people he defrauded, manipulated and traumatized.

Based on what we learned through testimonies during Kelly’s six-week trial which resulted in a 30 year sentence, here are a few other ways in which his tactics mirror what we commonly see in more typical situations of human trafficking:

• Recruitment: Kelly often followed a standard sex trafficking recruitment pattern. He (or his associates) would identify underage aspiring artists, express an interest in helping them develop their talents, then manipulate them into sexual relationships with promises of love, a successful career, or other things of value. False promises of success or fame are frequently used by traffickers to lure victims into sex or labor situations.
• Isolation: Once Kelly recruited his victims, he frequently isolated them from their friends and families. One victim, Jerhonda Pace, testified that he confiscated her cell phone. While another, who went by Jane, testified that he discouraged all the women from communicating with or visiting their families by telling them they “did not mean anything” to their families. Isolation is a common way in which traffickers attempt to maintain control over their victims without interference from external parties.
• Monitoring and Surveillance: Those victims who lived with Kelly, or in one of his homes, were made to follow strict rules and their movement was restricted. During the trial, a former assistant testified that many of Kelly’s victims had to request his permission to do most things, like eat or use the bathroom, and Kelly or a manager were often called in if these rules were broken. It is not uncommon for traffickers to surveil and restrict the movement of their victims, often with the help of others.
• Threats of Violence: Traffickers often threaten to harm victims or their loved ones as a way to continue controlling them or prevent them from reporting. One witness, identified as Sonja, testified that after being abused and kept in a room against her will for days she was allowed to leave, but was threatened by one of Kelly’s associates who told her they had addresses and phone numbers for her and some of her loved ones. As a result, Sonja did not initially report the abuse she experienced out of fear and a concern that no one would believe her.

These were the heart-wrenching stories told to a jury day in and day out in a trial that ended with Kelly’s conviction for racketeering and sex trafficking. Through these testimonies, prosecutors convinced the jury that, with the help of his associates, assistants, and managers, Kelly ran a criminal enterprise that allowed him to sexually abuse and exploit minors.

This guilty verdict and sentence follows decades of abuse endured by Kelly’s victims – almost exclusively young Black women and men. The decision sends an important message to other would-be exploiters but the process of reaching it lays bare some fundamental inequities in the criminal justice system – the same inequities that lead to Black girls being far more likely than their white counterparts to be arrested on charges related to prostitution.

For over 30 years, Kelly has been at the center of accusations and charges related to the exploitation and abuse of young women and men. That it took this many decades to stop the abuse and hold him accountable is a disturbing example of how our society often dismisses abuse when it impacts Black people, particularly Black women. As activist and #MuteRKelly co-founder Kenyette Tisha Barnes put it, R. Kelly is “the greatest example of a predator in that he went after the most vulnerable that no one cares about.”

The courageous women and men who came forward to face their trafficker and abuser did so despite several attempts by the defense to discredit them – painting them as groupies or disgruntled fans trying to capitalize on Kelly’s fame. They did so despite years of being silenced and shamed by Kelly’s supporters and society at large. This sentence is a victory for them and an example of the change that can come about when survivors are provided the space to share their experiences and be heard.

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The post Trafficking in the R. Kelly Case: Stripping Away the Glamour to Understand the Crime first appeared on Polaris.