Policy Archives - Page 4 of 11 - Shared Hope International

June 15, 2022 by Sidney McCoy

Legislative Update Series: State Non-criminalization Laws

Shared Hope has been a leader on policy research in the field of child and youth sex trafficking for over 20 years, working to ensure federal, state, and local policies are rooted in and supported by research and promising practices. Shared Hope’s Policy Team provides technical assistance and advocacy support to Congressional and state legislators seeking research-based, survivor-centered, and field-informed policy solutions to address child and youth sex trafficking. As Congress heads into Summer Recess and 27 of the 46 states in session in 2022 have adjourned for the calendar year, Shared Hope is doing a legislative update blog series on state and federal laws that have been introduced and enacted with the potential to impact survivors of child and youth sex trafficking. [Read more…]

June 14, 2022 by Sidney McCoy

Fact Sheet: Protecting Trafficking Survivors from Unjust Criminalization

Updated 2/21/2025

It is commonly known that unjust criminalization can be retraumatizing and creates an uneasy relationship between the survivor and the legal justice system. However, many state and federal laws continue to charge victims of human trafficking with the crimes they committed under coercive force by their traffickers. These crimes are frequently prostitution offenses but may also include misdemeanors and felonies ranging from theft to more serious violations. The victim often commits these crimes to appease their trafficker or survive their situation. These “victim–offenders,” or survivors who find themselves in the intersection of victimization and criminal offender, are retraumatized by their detention and prosecution. They are also left with a criminal record that hinders their enrollment in higher education, limits their ability to purchase a home, and restricts their access to work opportunities. The inability to develop their lives may leave survivors feeling stuck, financially restricted, and with no way to excel except by returning to their trafficker. Although some states have taken action to address this by allowing trafficking victims to vacate unjust convictions, Congress has yet to take similar action on this issue.

To address this issue and provide enduring support for trafficking victims, Shared Hope International supports introducing the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act (TSRA). The TSRA seeks to amend Title 18 of the U.S. Criminal Code. The amendment permits vacatur, or complete removal from an individual’s record, for non-violent criminal offenses when the offense was directly related to having been a victim of trafficking. See C(I). TSRA also provides victims with confidentiality by filing any document relating to the motion to vacate under seal and withholding any identifying information from public inspection.

Finally, the TSRA further amends Title 18 by adding a human trafficking defense. This defense establishes a rebuttable presumption that the offense was induced by duress, force, or coercion, wherever any defendant establishes by clear and convincing evidence, that they were a victim of trafficking at the time of the committed offense.

The Trafficking Survivors Relief Act accomplishes these goals by:

Amending Title 18 to allow a rebuttable presumption that certain offenses committed by victims of human trafficking were induced by coercion.
Amending Title 18 to permit a motion to vacate or expunge criminal offenses based on the mitigating factor that the alleged conduct that resulted in the arrest was directly related to the movant having been a victim of trafficking.
Sealing any identifying record or part of the proceeding related to such motion from the public record.

Current Sponsors:

House: Russell Fry, Ted Lieu, Ann Wagner, Robert Garcia, Hank Johnson, Debbie Dingell, Ami Bera, Andy Biggs, Greg Landsman, Michael Lawler, Emilia Strong Sykes, Byron Donalds

Learn More & Cosponsor:

Visit https://sharedhope.org/what-we-do/bring-justice/ to access Shared Hope’s research and advocacy resources.
TSRA Myths vs Facts
TSRA Fact Sheet
For technical assistance, contact our Policy team at Policy@sharedhope.org

Additional Sources:

Trauma, Coercion, And the Tools of Trafficking Exploitation: Examining The Consequences for Children And Youth In The Justice System, 109 Ky. LJ. 719. https://sharedhope.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/TRAUMA-COERCION-AND-THE-TOOLS-OF-TRAFFICKING-EXPLOITATION-EXAMINING-THE-CONSEQUENCES-FOR-CHILDREN-AN.pdf .
Responding to Sex Trafficking Victim – Offender Intersectionality: A Guide for Criminal Justice Stakeholders, https://sharedhope.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/SH_Responding-to-Sex-Trafficking-Victim-Offender-Intersectionality2020_FINAL.pdf.

May 25, 2022 by Camryn Peterson

Too Old For the System, But Not for Exploitation: Foster Youth “Aging Out” of Foster Care Expands Vulnerabilities to Commercial Sexual Exploitation

By: Camryn Peterson, Advocacy Manager

To truly end child and youth sex trafficking, we must not turn a blind eye to the systems that overlap with commercial sexual exploitation of children. As we reflect on National Foster Care month, we take a closer look at how involvement in foster care increases the risk of sex trafficking for vulnerable children and youth and how we aim to close the gap of exploitation through state change.

[Read more…]

March 11, 2022 by Maria Kearl

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 117^th 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.

February 28, 2022 by Guest

Toward Dignity, Respect, Equality and Equity: A Black History Month Reflection on the Trafficking and Criminalization of Black Women and Girls

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

Black History month focuses on the accomplishments and successes and richness of Black history, and rightly so. It also invokes underlying racial disparities in many areas of society. Poverty, education, and housing insecurity come to mind of course. Another area where this disparity is especially prevalent is in the prostitution and sex trafficking of black women and girls. According to the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, “40% of sex trafficking victims are black women, the highest percentage of any race.” Black girls are also disproportionately impacted by sex trafficking. One example of this is found in Louisiana where Black girls compromised only 19% of the state’s youth population in 2018 but they accounted for 49% of child sex trafficking survivors.

There are a host of reasons why Black women and girls are disproportionately impacted by trafficking, including socioeconomic factors, system involvement, and increased exposure to violence, sexual abuse and physical abuse. These vulnerabilities do not exist “because of racial identity but because of deeply entrenched systemic practices and structural responses to race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status.” Thus, many of the factors that increase Black girls’ risk of being trafficked also make them more likely to be criminalized as a result of their trafficking victimization and directed into the justice system. The disproportionate arrests of both exploited Black girls and women, is glaring.

In 2013 the Black population in the U.S. was 13.2 percent, not surprisingly 41.4 % of people arrested for prostitution were Black…. The demographics are even more disproportionate for minors as 61.9 % of those arrested for prostitution under the age of eighteen were Black.”

Legal and personal challenges, prejudice and ultimately injustice arise when victims are also classified as offenders. As a member of Shared Hope International’s Just Response Policy Council, we worked for over 3 years to develop a field guidance report titled Sex Trafficking Victim Offender Intersectionality: A Guide for Criminal Justice Stakeholders. As defined in the report, victim-offender intersectionality is “the phenomenon of sex trafficking victims alleged to have engaged in conduct that violates the federal definition of sex trafficking…[which] could involve a broad range of conduct, including recruitment, transportation, advertising and harboring, and could involve trafficking of adults by means of force, fraud or coercion or children without regard to whether force, fraud or coercion was involved.” This Council-informed report was jointly released by Shared Hope International and the Villanova Law Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation in January 2020 with the goal of supporting a shift in the criminal justice response to victim offender intersectionality by moving away from a narrow, retributive approach and towards a holistic approach.

Ultimately, Black women and girls could receive enormous benefits from a national implementation of this actionable, thorough, and well thought out trauma-responsive and trafficking-informed approach.

Addressing the exploitation of my demographic has been my passion and purpose since my personal victim-to-survivor journey more than twenty years ago. The catalyst was extreme trauma from domestic violence exacerbated by substance use disorder.

I was fortunate to receive trauma informed jail-based treatment at the Cook County Sheriff’s Office – Department of Women’s Justice Services, as a condition of Women’s Rehabilitative Alternative Probation, Drug Court, in lieu of a prison sentence. While I hope to see other survivors access these needed services outside the criminal justice process, to my surprise, God blessed me with a second chance through employment in the same program that saved my life, eventually leading to promotion(s) in other areas of the Sheriff’s Office addressing gender-based violence.

Those opportunities propelled me forward. It was 4 years ago this month that Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois (my home state), honored me in the Congressional record during Black History Month.

“As we near the end of this year’s Black History Month, I want to tell you about an amazing woman from the Chicago area who is making history today by helping to free women and children from modern-day slavery. Her name is Marian Hatcher, and she follows in the footsteps of two earlier “she-roes” of American history: Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman.”

He shared the rich Chicago history and accomplishments of names we know as successful changemakers facing adversity, so it was truly humbling to be compared to Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth in this abolitionist work to eradicate all forms or sexual exploitation before Congress and for posterity.

With that said, we have much work still left to do as our opponents are many, yet I stand with survivors, known and unknown. So many Black women and girls from slavery of old to modern day, treated as commodities. Many I have known, died still enslaved and even more have died that I do not know.

Just this week, Sara Goodwin was allegedly murdered and dismembered after being abducted near a track in Houston. She was believed to be involved in the sex trade and that made her a target for this monstrous act.

It is cases like this and the historical chattel slavery thread that compelled me to co-found an organization for black women and girls. The Alliance of Leadership & Innovation for Victims of Exploitation (ALIVE). ALIVE’s Mission is “dedicated to ending sex trafficking in the Black Community, by leveraging awareness and prevention through innovative solution focused events.” Our Vision is to behold a Black Community free from sex trafficking and exploitation.

Our founder, Melinda Metz poignantly states

I had an epiphany. If I’m ever to be a good sex trafficking survivor ally and advocate I desire, I need to understand as best I can the survivor world. This began a journey of meeting and building relationships with survivors and survivor leaders across the nation.

My knowledge was advanced exponentially, and my life was enriched, yet I was left with a troubling reality. The disproportionate number of sex trafficking victims being Black. It was then I went before the Lord and began to build ALIVE. There were many versions and recipes, It was when I contacted and collaborated with Dr. Marian Hatcher the soup was finally ready. The final ingredient a well-known, Black Survivor Leader at the helm!

With Black History month ending, we must continue to attack the business model of sexual exploitation fueled by an economy built on lust and greed. This is not the world I want for my children and grandchildren.

Dignity, Respect, Equality and Equity are the tenets of the society I envision and believe we can manifest and must work toward. This work is not for the faint of heart. It is for those who are willing, like Sojourner and Harriet, to slay the dragon and end the nightmare for those they know and those who will come long after they have gone.

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.