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Advanced Legislative Framework: Issue Area #4 & #5

As we continue to highlight the six Issue Areas within the Advanced Legislative Framework, we are excited to, once again, draw attention to more victim-centered and trauma-informed responses to ensure survivors receive the support they need following proper identification.

Issue Area #4 focuses on survivors’ access to justice, including creating a pathway to pursuing civil remedies, victim-witness protections, and crime victims’ compensation.

When survivors are not appropriately recognized in statute, they are often prevented from receiving the services and protections they need to pursue justice and, consequently, experience further harm in trying to move beyond there victimization.

Many survivors face financial difficulties because of high legal fees, face obstacles in accessing employment, housing, and more because of crimes they committed as a result of their own victimization (learn more in our Victim-Offender Intersectionality report). Therefore, victims are unable to access justice against their exploiter because of statute of limitations.

Conversely, it is clear that access to justice for trafficking survivors is not only feasible, it is the heart of strong anti-trafficking responses. For example, survivors can receive financial support through restitution, civil claims, and crime victims’ compensation to offset the monetary and non-monetary costs incurred as a result of their victimization, such as health care fees, lost income, and emotional harm. Without financial assistance, survivors will continue to lack access to vital programs to help them heal.

Survivors can also access justice through several additional measures. States should expand current civil orders of protections to trafficking victims, ensuring they have access to vital victim protections commonly limited to victims of intimate partner violence and sexual assault. Further, eliminating the statute of limitations for trafficking and CSEC offenses acknowledges the complexity of trafficking victimization and resulting civil and criminal cases. Lastly, survivors’ own criminal convictions and adjudications should be vacated, recognizing the injustice of criminalizing survivors for crimes committed as a result of their victimization.

To create a stronger path to justice for survivors, Issue Area #5 highlights victim-witness protections that seek to protect and support survivors during criminal justice processes.

For many survivors of child and youth sex trafficking, trauma continues far beyond the exploitation itself and often throughout the resulting criminal justice response. To build a case against exploiters, survivors are often asked to reshare their experience, often in front of others, without an advocate to support them. To create a more survivor-centered and trauma-centered environment, state laws should provide several alternative mechanisms for survivors to be protected when serving as a victim-witness, ensuring they feel as comfortable and safe as possible when participating in criminal justice processes.

For example, states should contemplate creating a hearsay exception for child and youth sex trafficking victims, allowing certain out-of-court statements to be included as evidence. Victims should also be given the opportunity to share their testimony through closed circuit television, helping shield the victim from the traumatizing impact of physically testifying before many people, including their offenders.

Further, survivors should have access to victim advocates throughout the criminal justice process who can provide key support and protection for the victim, both in and out of the courtroom.

Learn more about Issue Areas #4 and #5 in our Advanced Legislative Framework.

What do to next

  • Sign up to become a Grassroots Hero and receive monthly newsletters focused on policy initiatives, legislative wins, and urgent calls-to-action to help victims.
  • Contact your state and federal legislators about important bills or issues related to sex trafficking on our Advocacy Action Center.
  • Share this blog on social media so others can learn more about how Shared Hope is taking action against child and youth sex trafficking across the United States!
  • Join our Facebook Live on October 15 to learn more about our Report Cards! Like our Facebook page to guarantee you get notified when we go live.
  • Sign up to receive the Report Cards for Child & Youth Sex Trafficking to be the first to know when your state’s grade is released!

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Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act (Fact Sheet)

On September 3rd, 2021, the “Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act” (H.R.5150) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation most notably reauthorizes the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), which provides critical tools needed to combat human trafficking in the U.S. and abroad.  Without Congressional action, the TVPA is set to expire in September, 2021.  H.R.5150 also addresses several other issues related to human trafficking, including: implementing prevention education training requirements throughout Federal agencies, encouraging all states and territories to eliminate the requirement for third-party control, and expending legal protections for convicted survivors.

Shared Hope International supports this bill because it is trauma-informed, survivor-centered, and proactive. It is bipartisan legislation with broad support from at least 17 different national and state-based organizations. The passage of this legislation would have a direct impact on victims and survivors, whose needs would be addressed through the allocation of necessary funding and the implementation of training and educational programs in schools and healthcare settings.  Overall, this bill ensures the continuation of existing programs, while also increasing transparency and awareness for human trafficking in the U.S. and abroad, and preventing harm to future victims.

Key Problems Addressed  in This Bill

  • Lack of Victim Identification and Reporting: Understanding the dynamics of human trafficking is required for affected communities and non-profits to properly identify and address the needs of survivors;
  • Insufficient Prevention Education and Training Programs: Public and private sector entities can better prevent the exploitation of future victims and prevent re-exploitation of survivors through preventative training programs for various stakeholders and needed services for survivors and those at risk of exploitation;
  • Lack of long-term solutions for survivors: Human trafficking is a complex issue that requires long-term solutions to truly address the needs of survivors, including addressing the financial impacts of victimization and promoting survivors’ access to justice.

The “Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2021” (H.R.5150) accomplishes these goals by:

  • Reauthorizing and extending funding for several critical acts, including the “Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000” (TVPA). This would ensure critical programs supporting enforcement of trafficking laws and protections for survivors are funded until September 26th, 2026.
  • Awarding ‘Human Trafficking Education Grants’, with priority given to local education agencies serving in high intensity trafficking areas and partnering with non-profit organizations specializing in human trafficking prevention education. Additional criteria for selecting includes the ability for engage local partners, provide “culturally responsive, age-appropriate, and trauma informed” training, and create scalable, repeatable programs using “proven and tested best practices.”
  • Encouraging the adoption of prevention education training requirements in elementary and secondary schools, amongst healthcare professionals and social service providers, and within federal government agencies.
  • Providing legal protections for victims of exploitation by preventing civil retaliation against those who bring a civil case against a perpetrator.
  • Setting exceptions for youthful victim offenders to the minimum sentences for violations of the forced labor statute, with extra consideration taken for the effect of trauma on the victim-offender’s conduct.
  • Implementing Anti-Trafficking policies throughout Federal Agencies and the Executive branch, including labor and sex trafficking prevention and identification training.
  • Encouraging all states and territories to “eliminate the requirement for third-party control to properly qualify a child as a victim of sex trafficking, to aid in the identification and prevention of child sex trafficking, protect children, and appropriately prosecute perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law” and provides and updated definition of a child sex trafficking victim.
  • Amends the language in the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act and the Social Security Act to include labor trafficking victims in addition to sex trafficking victims and promote the needs of child victims.

Current Cosponsors:

Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Karen Bass (D-CA).

Learn More and Take Action:

Additional Sources:

 

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Coming Soon: Your state’s new Report Card Grade!

Join us November 17th for the release of Shared Hope International’s inaugural Report Cards on Child & Youth Sex Trafficking! These new report cards will be graded under an advanced legislative framework, taking Shared Hope’s State Report Cards project to the next stage in fighting sex trafficking and protecting victims! We will be releasing the new report cards live at our JuST Conference and streaming the release on our Facebook page. You can also sign up now to receive your state’s report card via text or email as soon as it is released on November 17:

History of Shared Hope International’s State Report Cards

The Protected Innocence Challenge project was Shared Hope’s vision for mobilizing collective state action to ensure national change. Ten years of grassroots mobilization, advocacy, technical assistance, and consistent collaboration allowed this vision to become reality. All states now have a child sex trafficking law and, collectively, the country has made exciting progress to provide imperative protections and access to specialized services for child survivors. However, despite this progress, critical gaps in state laws remain.

The Report Cards on Child & Youth Sex Trafficking will move to the next stage in challenging states to fight child sex trafficking in the United States. By applying the advanced legislative framework, these new report cards shift the focus from criminal laws, which have been strengthened across the country over the past 10 years, towards the next level of legislative change, which is ensuring that robust and trauma-informed protections are in place for trafficking victims and populations especially vulnerable to trafficking victimization.

The Next Stage of Anti-Trafficking Policy Reform

Ten years of analyzing state laws led to new research and opportunities to listen to survivors and stakeholders, providing waves of information that require us to confront where gaps remain and how states’ progress has not been consistent in all areas of the framework. What we heard, and responded to, was a call to raise the bar for states…to build on the foundation of progress by further improving protections for child sex trafficking victims.

If you’d like to learn more about how this next stage in state grades will move anti-trafficking efforts to the next level, join us for a live Facebook briefing in October! We will share the date and time closer to the event, but like and follow us on Facebook now so you’ll receive an alert when we go live.

 

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Statement of Support for the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2021

Shared Hope International is grateful to Congressmembers Smith and Bass for introducing the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2021, and for their longstanding commitment to combatting human trafficking and promoting trauma-informed responses to trafficking survivors. This critical legislation reflects that commitment by highlighting the importance of prevention through education, training and research as well as appropriate accountability for offenders, while also advancing trauma-informed approaches that better meet the needs of trafficking survivors. Additionally, by furthering efforts to reduce vulnerabilities to trafficking and build resiliency factors by improving access to mental health services and housing, this legislation takes important steps toward preventing survivors from returning to exploitative situations. And by encouraging consistent trafficking definitions at the state level to increase identification of child sex trafficking survivors and improve their access to resources, this legislation will also prevent child victims from falling through the cracks of systems designed to assist them.

As Shared Hope International has seen over the past 23 years, human trafficking is a complex problem that requires long-term solutions; by extending authorizations until 2026 to create greater continuity for human trafficking programs and enforcement efforts and by ensuring that trafficking survivors voices continue to be at the forefront through the Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, this legislation truly takes the long view. Shared Hope is pleased to support the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2021 as it creates needed infrastructure for improving responses to trafficking survivors while advancing effective approaches to ultimately prevent the egregious harms that trafficking survivors should ideally never have to experience in the first place.

Please take a minute to contact your Members of Congress, urging them to pass this vital bill.

Read the fact sheet to learn more about the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2021.

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Some states limit victim identification, but that can change.

About our guest author:

As a Master of Social Work candidate at the University of Alabama and part of the University’s MSW Washington D.C. program, Susannah Ayers spent the spring 2021 semester in a Policy Fellowship with Shared Hope International. Through this fellowship, she worked closely with the Policy Team to analyze and advocate for legislation that is survivor-centered and evidence-based. She attributes her fellowship experience to increasing her understanding of the issues that contribute to the sexual exploitation of minors and ways to eradicate them.

 

One of the many issues driving human trafficking is the demand for commercial sex. A simple economics lesson will explain that when demand for a product increases, supply will also increase in order to meet that demand. Unfortunately, the same is true with child sexual exploitation. As long as there are buyers who are willing to purchase sex with minors, traffickers will continue to ensure their supply. This principle highlights the importance of addressing demand and holding not only traffickers but also buyers accountable for their crimes.

Far too often, men who buy sex are excused for their behavior, justified by a “boys will be boys” attitude. This response perpetuates the false narrative that if an individual has enough power and financial resources, he has the right to buy anything he wants- including another person. As an example, in 2013, the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation conducted a study of online buyers of sex in Illinois. In regards to the commonly used justification of men purchasing sex, the researchers reported that “overt and underlying assumptions about masculinity, femininity, sexuality, and prostituted women, in particular, inform men’s participation in the commercial sex industry.”[1] Without addressing these harmful, societal barriers, the problem of sexual exploitation will only continue.

The lack of buyer accountability is often evidenced in the legislation that addresses human trafficking. Currently, 19 states require evidence of third party control (or trafficker involvement) in order to establish the crime of sex trafficking. When proof of third party control is required to prosecute, it reduces or eliminates the culpability of the buyer and risks misidentification of victims who may be unable or unwilling to identify a trafficker. While any trafficker should be held accountable, the buyers should be held accountable as well. As long as there are people who are willing to purchase sex with minors, the opportunity to do so will always exist. Accordingly, legislation that requires third-party control fails to address one of the root issues that drive the sex trade.

Additionally, by necessitating evidence of third-party control, related state laws fail to identify minors engaged in survival sex as victims of sex trafficking for purposes of effectuating sex trafficking-specific responses. Survival sex is defined as an individual engaging in a sex act in order to meet a basic need. These situations could include a child who engages in sex in order to secure food or shelter. Although there may not be a trafficker who forces the child to engage in paid sex with a buyer, their need for survival forces them to make this choice. Such limited definitions of sex trafficking under state law are contrary to federal law, which includes any child engaged in commercial sex as a trafficking victim. When third party control is required, victims in this type of situation are excluded from legal remedies and connection with services given under human trafficking laws. It is also possible that the buyer is not held accountable for exploiting an individual’s basic needs in order to gain sex.

Currently, the 19 states that require evidence of third party control to establish the crime of sex trafficking are:

  • Alaska
  • California
  • Connecticut
  • Delaware
  • Hawaii
  • Indiana
  • Iowa
  • Maine
  • Maryland
  • Minnesota
  • New Jersey
  • New York
  • Ohio
  • Pennsylvania
  • South Carolina
  • Texas
  • Virginia
  • West Virginia
  • Wyoming

What can be done to address this continued injustice? Strong legislative action is needed to ensure that buyers are held responsible for exploiting those experiencing vulnerabilities. For more information on the importance of removing third party control requirements, see Shared Hope’s policy paper entitled “Eliminating the Third Party Control Barrier to Identifying Juvenile Sex Trafficking Victims.”

What can you do?

  • If you are a constituent in any of the 19 states that still require evidence of third party control, contact your legislators and educate them on the barriers that exist within current state law. Visit our campaign to learn more.
  • No matter where you live, you can educate the people around you. Share Shared Hope’s fact sheet on “Why Definitions Matter” and use your sphere of influence to bring these issues to light. Challenge the idea that purchasing sex is socially acceptable and help others get involved and take action.
  • Sign up to receive your state’s grade when released November 17, 2021.

 

For more information on ways to advocate for these and other legislative changes, visit Shared Hope’s Advocacy Action Center at https://act.sharedhope.org/actioncenter.

[1] https://icasa.org/docs/misc/caase%20report%20online%20buyers%20of%20sex%20in%20illinois.pdf

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