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A Call to Action: How Current Federal Legislation Could Impact Protections for Child Sex Trafficking Victims

Under the Advanced Legislative Framework, released by Shared Hope International in 2020, additional focus is given to several issues of national importance, including encouraging harm prevention for survivors in the juvenile justice system, mandating trauma-informed trafficking training for relevant state agencies, and increasing access to services for minor victims.  The Framework analyzes the adoption of these specific policy solutions at the state level, providing grades for each state on how their statutory law meets the defined policy goals.  To support and leverage these changes at the state level, it is also important to recognize the role of the federal government in promoting the prevention of child sex trafficking and the identification and treatment of child victims.

So far in the current 117th session of Congress, a few key pieces of legislation were enacted that align with the broader goals of Shared Hope’s Advanced Legislative Framework.  On December 26, 2021, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021 (NDAA) which included the Debt Bondage Repair Act (DBRA). The DBRA significantly improves a survivors’ financial freedom by preventing consumer reporting agencies from releasing credit reports that contain adverse information caused by a survivor’s victimization.

Additionally, the VOCA FIX Act was enacted on June 21, 2021. This bill expanded the sources of revenue collected from deferred prosecution and non-prosecution agreements to be deposited into the Crime Victims Fund and increased the amount of compensation awarded to victims. Generally, trafficking victims are eligible for VOCA funds in all states with varying requirements. (See Shared Hope’s Issue Brief 4.2 on crime victim compensation).

Despite the successful enactment of this legislation, there is still significant work that can be done on the federal level to address the needs of child sex trafficking victims.  In particular, Shared Hope would like to highlight several necessary pieces of legislation that have yet to be enacted. These bills include:

  • The Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) (R.5150/H.R.6552), which provides much needed reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. This bill would implement additional measures to promote awareness of human trafficking and encourage domestic and global change to prevent future harm. The primary sponsor is Representative Smith (R-NJ).
  • Eliminating Limits to Justice for Child Sex Abuse Victims Act of 2022 ( 3103), which removes the statute of limitation for offenses commonly brought by victims against their traffickers. This allows for greater access to justice for trafficking victims.  The primary sponsor is Senator Durbin (D-IL).
  • Put Trafficking Victims First Act of 2021 (R. 6479/ S. 3643), which takes several key steps toward ensuring that victims have access to the services they need through a non-punitive response. This includes training state and local governments on trafficking identification and prevention, establishing an expert working group to identify best practices in responding to human trafficking, and encouraging states to adopt certain rights and protections for victims. The primary sponsors are Representative Bass (D-CA) and Senator Gillibrand (D-NY).
  • The EARN IT Act (3538/H.R.6544), which would incentivize the tech industry to take online child sexual exploitation seriously by removing immunity from online service providers that knowingly facilitate the distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on their platforms. This bills also clarifies language in the federal criminal code by replacing the term “child pornography” with “child sexual abuse material” and establishes the National Commission on Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention, comprising a diverse, bipartisan group of leaders representing the technology sector, child protection advocates, survivors, law enforcement and related fields, to develop voluntary best practices for preventing and responding to child sexual exploitation online. The primary sponsors are Representative Sylvia (D-TX) and Senator Graham (R-SC).
  • Sara’s Law and the Preventing Unfair Sentencing Act (R.2858), which would authorize the court to depart from a statutory minimum in the case of a juvenile offender, youthful victim offender, and certain other minors. This bill also modifies federal sentencing courts to impose a sentence below the mandatory minimum for a juvenile who was convicted of a violent offense against a person who engaged in certain conduct (e.g., trafficking, abuse, or assault) against the juvenile. The primary sponsor is Representative Westerman (R-AR).
  • The Trafficking Survivors Housing Act (2049/H.R.3891), which directs the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness to coordinate and consult with stakeholders to study the availability and accessibility of housing and services for survivors of trafficking or persons at risk of being trafficked. The primary sponsors are Senator Brown (D-OH) and Representative Beatty (D-OH).
  • Fair Housing for Domestic Violence and Sexual Violence Survivors Act of 2021 (R.2542/S.1122), which amends the Fair Housing Act to prohibit eviction and other forms of housing discrimination based on an individual’s status as a survivor of domestic violence, sexual assault, and sex trafficking. The primary sponsors are Representative Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Senator Shaheen (D-NH).
  • Human Trafficking Survivor Tax Relief Act of 2021 (895/H.R. 6389), which requires the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness to coordinate and consult with stakeholders to study the availability and accessibility of housing and services for survivors of trafficking and persons at risk of being trafficked. The primary sponsors are Senator Cornyn (R-TX) and Representative Schneider (D-IL).
  • The Human Trafficking and Exploitation Prevention Training Act (2136), which establishes grants to train students, teachers, and school and youth development personnel on how to better understand, recognize, prevent, and respond to human trafficking and the exploitation of children and youth. The primary sponsors are Senator Murkowski (R-AK) and Representative Buchanan (R-FL).

To combat trafficking in persons in the year ahead, join Shared Hope International in encouraging Congress to take action on this legislation.  We also look forward to Congress introducing new legislation to further address the needs of child sex trafficking victims, including legislation to provide survivors with access to vacatur and affirmative defenses for federal convictions that occurred as a direct result their victimization.

To learn more about federal legislation that addresses the needs of sex trafficking victims and to take action in support of this critical issue, please visit Shared Hope’s Federal Advocacy Action Center.

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The Debt Bondage Repair Act: Bringing Attention to the Long-Term Needs of Trafficking Survivors

Dr. Marian Hatcher
Shared Hope Policy Consultant
Ambassador-at-Large, United Nations

As National Slavery & Human Trafficking Prevention Month 2022 ends, I am filled with a myriad of emotions. This annual recognition on the surface is focused on long term protections of victims/survivors addressing labor and sex trafficking, yet economic exploitation is often overlooked. In a month dedicated to awareness, there is still a lack of awareness of the long-term financial impacts that many trafficking survivors suffer. However, this past year we had a win, the Debt Bondage Repair Act (DBRA), and this month is a great time to celebrate it.

In December 2020, I was asked to provide technical assistance to the House Committee on Financial Services and was subsequently invited to testify as a subject matter expert at a hearing on issues related to the Business of Human Trafficking.

After numerous delays due to the COVID pandemic, and many layers of internal vetting for the panel, on March 25, 2021, I was honored to testify at the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services’ hearing, Breaking the Chains: Dismantling the Business of Human Exploitation.

To explain the importance this issue holds for me, I would like to share some of the testimony I gave at that hearing:

The impact of human trafficking does not end when victims leave their trafficking situations and their exploiters are held accountable. For survivors, these are just the first steps in a long process toward achieving the interwoven goals of healing, empowerment, and financial stability. Without financial stability and resources to support educational goals and to meet basic needs, survivors who have left their trafficking situation will often struggle to stay “out of the life” and may return to exploitative situations due to lack of resources. The fact that many trafficking survivors face arrest and criminal charges as a result of their trafficking means they face even greater hurdles to accessing needed housing assistance, seeking employment, and pursuing educational goals.

We must provide avenues for credit history relief and ensure availability of consumer banking products for trafficking victims. In addition to exploiting their victims through commercial sex or forced labor, traffickers – particularly in the context of domestic trafficking – may also exploit their victims’ credit histories by using their social security numbers to take out loans and make large purchases, such as vehicles, intending not to pay, thereby destroying their victims’ credit histories in the process.

When survivors without credit histories and those having damaged credit histories leave their trafficking situations and begin working toward financial stability, they often find that they are unable to access basic consumer banking services – in particular, obtaining a credit card – which creates further barriers to establishing credit histories and achieving financial independence. Lack of a bank account or credit card may even impact a survivor’s ability to seek employment or to rent an apartment. Therefore, disrupting the long-term impacts of human trafficking should include assistance for survivors with amending damaging reports and other methods for improving their credit histories to prevent ongoing injury from trafficking victimization. Utilizing alternative means of evaluating credit for human trafficking survivors could have a dramatic impact on a survivor’s ability to attain financial stability and to heal from the wounds of trafficking victimization. We should also provide access to financial literacy education for human trafficking survivors. Survivors who have experienced sex trafficking as a child or young adult have shared that an important support that was sometimes lacking in the services they received was education on financial literacy and the skills they needed to become financially self-sufficient. 

I was surprised and grateful, when Ranking Member Patrick McHenry’s office informed me, he wanted to craft a bill, inspired by my testimony. He displayed leadership at the federal level and exerted political will, courageously doing what it takes, to promote a victim-centered approach, helping survivors of sex trafficking move past economic barriers related to their exploitation.

The DBRA removes economic barriers for survivors by preventing debts incurred as a result of trafficking from ruining a survivor’s credit history and undermining their access to basic financial services needed to attain financial stability.

This past June, the Debt Bondage Repair Act (DBRA), a narrowly scoped piece of legislation with immense ability to assist the economically exploited, was passed by the House of Representatives.

With that, it brought one step closer, the sentiments of my written statement introduced on the House Floor June 15, 2021,

“Survivors spend a great deal of time trying to heal in ways you would expect; physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

However, another critically important aspect of healing is often left unattended and impedes the path to holistic health. That aspect is financial healing.

In many cases, the lack of financial wellness causes victims to have no option but to return to exploitive situations.

In other circumstances, survivors may be held civilly or criminally liable for debt incurred during their trafficking.

Any of these scenarios prevent the life of liberty and wholeness that survivors yearn for and deserve.

The Debt Bondage Repair Act will help provide survivors with a viable chance at full wellbeing, inclusive of financial stability and security.”….

I was thankful for the momentum the bill gained when Senator Cornyn introduced the Debt Bondage Repair Act in the Senate. Excitingly, the bill was later included in the non-defense section of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which passed Congress and was signed into law by President Biden on December 27, 2021.

You can imagine how I felt; it seemed so quick for this important change to come about. I’m not in the best health and yet God in his magnificence used my brokenness and experience to establish a way out for my sibling survivors.

It is a bittersweet accomplishment as the devastation of the remaining mountains of long-term consequences of exploitation, weigh heavily on the backs of victims/survivors and to be frank, my mind.

It’s that same urge to build better responses for the many survivors who continue to be exploited through trafficking that motivated the development of the “Exited Prostitution Survivor Policy Platform” written by thirteen survivors, including myself. It remains the best policy for long term consequences and solutions:

“Our intention in issuing this unified declaration is to urge stakeholder groups to endorse comprehensive policies based on three Pillars of Priority: 1) Reforms to our nation’s criminal justice approach to prostitution; 2) Fair employment for survivors; and 3) Essential standards of care for people exiting the sex trade.”

As we reach the end of National Slavery & Human Trafficking Prevention Month, it is an excellent time to take stock of the challenges that lie ahead and the issues that have remained hidden but need our attention. Looking ahead, I am excited to see how the DBRA will impact survivor’s lives, even as I recognize that this is just part of the work that remains to be done to ensure the long term needs of survivors get the attention they need.

Dr. Hatcher has worked as a civilian member of law enforcement at the Cook County Sheriffs Office for 15 years,  a U.S. Representative of SPACE International (Survivors of Prostitution Calling for Enlightenment), a survivor organization representing 10 countries. She is a recipient of numerous awards including the 2014 Shared Hope International Path Breaker Award, the 2016 Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award from President Obama, and was honored on Congressional Record for Black History by U.S. Senator Richard Durbin of IL.

 

The information and links provided in this resource are solely for educational and informational purposes and do not constitute legal advice. Additionally, Shared Hope International cannot comment on, or confirm, an individual’s victim status for purposes of accessing relief under the Debt Bondage Repair Act.

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January 2022 – Human Trafficking Awareness Month: Bring Justice

By: Camryn Peterson, Advocacy Manager

 

In 2020, Shared Hope opened its doors to the Institute for Justice & Advocacy only a few blocks from the White House. This physical location has been symbolic in our journey to bring justice to victims of sex trafficking across the country and our ultimate aim to eradicate child and youth sex trafficking. The Institute aligns our various programs to empower you to join us in this movement to seek justice at a systemic and individual level. Together, we are preventing this injustice, bringing restoration for survivors who need trauma-informed care, and advocating for victim-centered responses.

Our policy team works diligently with elected officials and key stakeholders across the country to create legislation that prioritizes victim protections, while also educating leaders on the realities of child and youth sex trafficking in the United States. Since 2011, we have graded states’ laws to identify the strengths and weaknesses in their legal frameworks for addressing child and youth sex trafficking, and in nearly 10 years, we have seen incredible improvement. We saw so much growth, that in 2020 we released an advanced legislative framework to take our state grades to the next step in sex trafficking policy reform: the Report Cards on Child & Youth Sex Trafficking. With the advanced legislative framework, we are pushing states further toward better, more informed victim protections and increased preventative efforts.

Through our Grassroots Heroes, key initiatives are elevated to state and federal legislators and victims receive vital support on petitions via our Advocacy Action Center. Further, Ambassadors of Hope educate their communities on how to identify trafficking so community members know how to respond when red flags are present. Without your support, we would not be as successful as we are in spreading awareness and bridging the knowledge gap to ensure more just responses for child and youth sex trafficking survivors.

Shared Hope’s training program provides education and networking opportunities to key stakeholders and professionals working in the field as direct service providers, criminal justice and first responders. Our online and in-person training highlights the values reinforced throughout our policy work like ensuring appropriate, trauma-informed responses to victims, an essential component of justice reform.

Without this, victims continue to be traumatized and essential services are withheld from them.

Bringing justice is a broad term that continues to anchor Shared Hope and reminds us that our goal is to bring ultimate justice, which is an end to child and youth sex trafficking.  We will continue to stand in the gap alongside you and push for victim-centered responses and advocate for essential preventative training and awareness.

 

Take Action –

Thank you for helping us bring justice in many ways. Please continue to join us in this movement by participating in one or multiple of the action items below:

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January 2022 – Human Trafficking Awareness Month: Restoration

by Nancy Winston, Senior Director

 

With the establishment of Shared Hope in 1998, efforts began with international partners and restoration was the sole focus. Starting here was the foundation for our education on what “restoration” really looked like. Early on, we provided safe places for some in India, Nepal, Jamaica, Fiji, and South Africa to escape lives of misery and live in places of safety. However, it quickly became clear that a place of safety was by no means an entire solution.  The words of one survivor made this quite clear: “What do you mean by restoration?  How can you restore something that was never there?”

This simple observation expanded our thinking on the subject.  One needs to produce something before it can be re-produced, create something before it can be re-created, and confirm something before it can be re-confirmed!  This was the beginning of our mission to Prevent. Restore. Bring Justice, and a more complete picture of restoration.

At Shared Hope, we often talk about the three pillars of focus to bring an end to sex trafficking—Prevent. Restore. Bring Justice.  Those of us who work within the organization typically orient around one of those priority areas. However, as our anti-trafficking movement has matured domestically, we have come to see the priorities more as overlapping layers of fabric making something like a garment of protection. Here in the US, there are children raised in abusive homes, who may go through seven or eight subsequent foster care homes. They flee these dangerous situations on their own, only to get entangled with a trafficker by deception, out of desperation. Even more tragically, they often get involved in a crime because they are the criminal’s property and at the scene. These are the children for whom we actively advocate with our State Report Cards. They needed information to prevent them from falling prey to traffickers. They needed a stable system of care if their birth family couldn’t provide it. They needed to have an alternative to the desperate run in search of someone/anyone who cared. They needed access to trauma informed resources that would treat them with compassion and respect despite their resistance.  They needed to have an advocate who understood the circumstances that involved them in a crime as a perpetrator, though they themselves were victims of crime. They needed the law to recognize that and protect rather than punish them. This is the reality that too many children face today, boys and girls alike. At Shared Hope, we believe that addressing and correcting the deficiencies in each layer of fabric will constitute something new—a garment of protection.

This is why we have chosen domestic grant partners who play a role in one or more of the layers that make up that garment.  In fiscal year 2022, we are providing grants to 11 different NGOs from all parts of the USA that provide those things most needed by survivors–safe housing, pro bono legal services, life skills training, therapy to cope with complex trauma, personal empowerment, and the opportunity for spiritual healing and growth.  One grant partner provides training for human trafficking investigators, another, pro-bono legal services; two others are dedicated to freeing boys and young men from the devastation of sex trafficking. These partners all have missions that fit very well with the priorities we have had and continue to have–to Prevent, to Restore and to Bring Justice.  Justice served is itself restorative; the best path to restoration is the administration of true justice.

Justice served is itself restorative; the best path to restoration is the administration of true justice.

Shared Hope began with international partners; restoration was the sole focus and we provided a safe place for some in India, Nepal, Jamaica, Fiji and South Africa to escape a life of misery and to flourish.  We will be faithful to continue our efforts internationally, but it is here in the USA that we have the opportunity to assemble a garment of prevention, restoration and justice through influencing the laws of the land.

Take Action –

Now that you have read about the importance of restoration work in the fight against human trafficking, here are a few take action steps:

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January 2022 – Human Trafficking Awareness Month: Prevention

By Jo Lembo, Director of Faith Initiatives & National Outreach

You are the key to Shared Hope’s success in fighting child and youth sex trafficking.

Shared Hope pursues a strong Prevention program to help you educate others.

The more people who know the signs of trafficking, and who know how to effectively respond, the smaller the world is for those who would buy and sell our children.

Through the years we have heard our audiences ask, “But what can I do?” and that question is the basis of our strategies. Faith Initiatives, the Ambassadors, and the Defenders all walk alongside you with practical training, toolkits, and resources to shine the light into the darkness. Building on your skills, interests and influence, we create materials that help you build a foundation of understanding that leads to taking action, and that results in a safer community.

Awareness begins in the home, in schools, communities, and churches. Shared Hope supports you with the basic building blocks to be proactive in educating those around you so they know,

  • what trafficking looks like,
  • what makes kids vulnerable,
  • what are the tactics of predators or pimps, and
  • how to respond effectively.

Growth Strategies reaches out to inform you through informational newsletters and podcasts to strengthen your resolve to continue to fight side-by-side with us. We help you understand the important part each of you has in protecting children. Your friendship and partnership with Shared Hope is vital to the work we do.

Through training webinars and conferences, Shared Hope offers programming with firsthand conversations with trained professionals, who share their experience along with powerful stories, that equip audiences to understand how to stop trafficking through prevention education. We draw speakers from not only licensed professionals, but also individuals with learned experience, and those who are providing direct services to survivors so they can thrive.

It’s simple: the more you know, the safer kids are.

Our policy team at the Institute for Justice and Advocacy is a strong influence in state and federal legislation that insures provision and protection measures for victims and survivors of trafficking. Working parallel to our awareness programs, we understand the importance of educating professionals such as law enforcement, judges and prosecutors, social workers, and many others who all come into contact with the victims of trafficking. This is why we’ve added an entire section to our Report Cards on Child & Youth Sex Trafficking designed to encourage mandated trainings for key stakeholders and students. Those laws with an educated public, form a strong safety net to ensure the kind of care that gives hope to survivors that they can find a bright future.

Together, we will prevent commercial sex trafficking…one life at a time.

Take Action –

Now that you have read about the importance of prevention work in the fight against human trafficking, here are a few take action steps:

 

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