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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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Built-In Guardrails For When You Aren’t There

Part of the role of parents to effectively protect their kids is to know what is being taught in your school, and what your child is exposed to. That begins with your involvement in your child’s classroom however you are able.

  • Ask your child’s teacher how you can volunteer in the classroom. (Hint: Gramma or Grampa may be willing to fill this role as a volunteer.)
  • Attend PTA or PTO meetings regularly and take notes.
  • Always meet with your child’s teacher on Parent-Teacher Night.
  • Ask to be on a textbook review committee.
  • Be aware of what sex education curriculum is being taught. Some titles sound great…but aren’t appropriate for school-aged children.
  • Find out what social media protocols and guidelines look like.

Example: Ask if smartphones are allowed to be used in a bathroom at school, and what porn filters on public computers are in place throughout classrooms and the library. 

Through the school year, your child’s teacher becomes very familiar with each child. Be sure they have materials with the signs of trafficking to watch for: https://sharedhope.org/takeaction/report-trafficking/

Other ways you can help:

  1. Teach children there is safety in numbers! That maxim is true not only in person but also on social media.
  2. Teach students to only accept conversations online with those that they know personally (have they met them in person). Tell kids, before they talk to someone, they should ask themselves: “Do you know where they live, and where they go to school?”
  3. Do not trust friends of friends!

 Predators troll the Internet looking for telltale signs a youth may be vulnerable:

  • I hate my parents, I want to run away.
  • My curfew is stupid. They treat me like a baby.
  • Nobody understands me. I hate school.
  • My boy/girlfriend just broke up with me. I wish somebody loved me.
  • I wish someone would take care of me. Life sucks.
  • Nobody’s ever around. No one listens to me.
  • I wish I was popular.
  • I want to have sex.
  • I wish I could ask someone about these things.

As parents or guardians, we want our children to talk to us. But the reality is they may be more comfortable discussing their feelings with a trusted teacher, a friend’s parents, or another adult they trust. Give your child permission to speak to someone other than yourself when they don’t feel comfortable discussing something with you.

Show them a copy of How to Identify a Safe Adult and agree on who they can trust and why. Connect with that person and your child to lay a foundation of communication.

Be aware of after-school activities and oversight

  • Who is providing oversight and protection?
  • Know details about the specific activities in the community (after school sports, outings, field trips, extra-curricular clubs).
  • Who’s providing supervision for the participants and what protocols are in place?
  • Keep in mind the outline of what a safe adult looks/acts like, and what a predator looks/talks like. Help children understand they can walk away and ask for help if they feel uncomfortable or threatened.
  • Most predators become familiar and build trust. They take their time to breach boundaries, all the while being a friend to the child. Be sure your child knows “how to be rude to nice people.”

 Be aware of why DMST flourishes in sheltered environments such as private schools, church/parochial schools, homeschooled audiences, and rural communities:

Familiarity breeds a false sense of security When everyone knows everyone, trust is often assumed. Adults feel other adults and older teens are just like them and would ‘never’ think of a child in that way.

Be aware of the rise in pornographic exposure to younger and younger children, psychologists are warning about child-on-child sexual assaults. Unfortunately, this is often a child acting out what they’ve seen in pornography. Defending Young Minds is one of our favorite resources for protecting children.

We’ve all read the news stories where some horrific thing happened, and the neighbors all said, “They were so nice all the time. We never would have suspected this!”

Without causing fear, educate your children about body boundaries. What is and isn’t okay. How to tell a person “NO” firmly, then run away, and tell their safe adult.

Remember the swimsuit rule? It needs to be modified because it’s no longer enough to tell a child that no one should touch the parts of your body that a swimsuit covers. Why?

Because predators are often known to the child, they have access to them (offering to tutor them, give music lessons, take them on outings, or babysit) They may begin by stroking their hair, holding their hand, holding them on their lap or rubbing their back. When the child becomes accustomed to that attention, the predator will try to separate them from others and give them special attention by buying them special gifts offering them special outings. And then the child becomes accustomed to being alone with them and something happens…

Train your child that we don’t keep secrets.

We keep happy surprises (like what we bought Daddy for Christmas) but we share those at just the right time, and everyone likes it.

ALWAYS tell me if someone tells you not to tell. Or if they tell you “this is a secret for just you and me.”

 They may be threatened.
No one will believe you. You wanted me to do that. This is your fault.

Understand that when survivors of human sex trafficking are asked; “What is one thing that could have helped you from falling into this trap?” The answer often includes that they were “just looking for someone that would listen to them.”
That is the gap the predators are taking advantage of and how they manipulate and lure our children in. And they are masterful at the deceptive tactics they use. They discover the child’s hopes and dreams, hurts and needs. Then they devise a personality that meets those needs. Their initial encounters are to build trust and are generally not sexually overt in nature. Over time, they erode boundaries, build dependency, and erode the normal safety net of family and friends.

Understanding what to look for, and where to go for help, will keep your child safer!

 

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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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