Dr. Marian Hatcher
Shared Hope Policy Consultant
Ambassador-at-Large, United Nations
Each January we start off the new year with renewed vigor to fight human trafficking as we acknowledge and consider the long road ahead during National Human Trafficking Prevention month. Of course, we know we can’t address Human Trafficking in one month, and the reality is that human trafficking cuts across so many different issue areas that most months have some relevance to this fight, and offer a different perspective on the issue as we move through the year. However, as we move through February, there is a unique importance to pause and consider the impact of Black History month on human trafficking. Sadly, the data continues to show that trafficking disproportionately impacts Black communities, especially Black children and youth, largely due to structural inequality.
“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.”
Currently, there are two federal bills that exemplify the need for shifting the trajectory that puts at-risk youth in the crosshairs of abuse and exploitation while also addressing the resulting harms when our systems failed to shift that trajectory and those young people not only experience trafficking, but also find themselves facing the immense burden of a criminal conviction. We must view juvenile justice packages of legislation as well as long term consequence legislation as intertwined opportunities, which serve as building blocks for more just responses overall.
It is imperative we connect the dots, no longer passing legislation in silos, but instead realizing the problems and their solutions are a part of a puzzle. Vulnerabilities resulting from being a runaway can lead to homelessness for our young people, which in many situations results in trafficking. Circumstances such as this will become an environment where criminal behavior becomes an act of survival to meet a trafficker’s demands or to meet basic needs such as food and shelter.
This is why the Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act (RHYTPA) is so critically important. As the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act celebrates its 50th anniversary, this bill would reauthorize and expand the critically important programs that enable RHY providers to be the force that shifts the trajectory for young people facing homelessness and housing insecurity. Recognizing that these adversities don’t simply dissipate on a young person’s 18th birthday (indeed these adversities are often compounded as that young person ages out of supports provided through child serving systems), RHY programs extend critically needed supports to youth 18+ and can be a lifeline at a critically important stage of a young person’s life.
If we don’t address the vulnerabilities and systemic failures aimed at our younger population, we will be addressing the same issues when they become adults. Tragically, as a survivor-leader and anti-trafficking advocate, I have seen the failure to support young people early on play out day after day. I have seen how failing to shift the trajectory early on, leads to greater harms and often unjust involvement in the criminal justice system. Then that involvement in the criminal justice system compounds the trauma of that experience by leaving survivors with a criminal record that impedes access to housing, education, even basic financial resources that are needed to move forward, requiring a different, but equally important, type of legislative remedy to address the injustice of criminalization that arises from victimization.
The Trafficking Survivors Relief Act (TSRA) provides that remedy at the federal level. This bill is essential to (1) provide criminalized survivors of trafficking the opportunity to address unjust criminalization at the outset of a prosecution by asserting an affirmative defense, (2) remove convictions and arrests resulting from trafficking and enable trafficking survivors to shed the incredible burden of carrying an unjust federal conviction and criminal history, and (3) ensure that this remedy is available to a wide range of survivors.
“Victim-Offender Intersectionality (VOI) is at the heart of the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act (TSRA). It is the solution to unjust criminalization when addressing vulnerabilities, years of exploitation, and long-term consequences. Consequences impacting a survivor’s ability to secure safe housing, employment, education and financial stability.
As a member of the SHI Just Response Council, a survivor leader, who received Executive Clemency & Expungement on the state level in Illinois, I have agonized over the substance of this legislation. It is therefore my deep belief in the need for a federal remedy to alleviate long lasting legal effects on survivors, that I support Affirmative Defense and Vacatur.” (Rev. Dr. Marian Hatcher, January 31, 2024).
When we don’t connect the dots between runaway and homeless youth, trafficking, and juvenile and adult criminal justice in a uniform manner, we inevitably find ourselves addressing the lack of viable solutions to harm after the fact. Trying to fit the individual pieces of a puzzle together can be challenging and sometimes discouraging, but the victory in completing the puzzle is always of great reward! We must end the cycle of harm and take action to prevent all the harms of trafficking, right from the beginning by protecting young people, and down the road to prevent trafficking victimization from being the end of the road.
