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Fact Sheet: Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act

Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act (S.4916/H.R.8948)

Approximately 4.2 million youth and young adults experience homelessness in the United States each year. Homeless and runaway youth are among those most susceptible to falling victim to human trafficking as their heightened state of vulnerability and the immediate nature of their needs create an ideal situation for perpetrators to exploit. Traffickers often use a youth’s basic needs as leverage to coerce them into exchanging sex acts for food, shelter, clothing, or other basic needs. In fact, recent studies show that nearly one third of homeless and runaway youth have had to engage in sex to survive. In one survey, 24% of youth living on the streets had exchanged sex for money, and 27.5% had exchanged sex for a place to stay. Furthermore, trafficking survivors indicated that shelter was the number one commodity traded in return for sexual activity because traffickers often loiter in areas where homeless youth are known to gather.

The Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act (“RHYTPA”) recently introduced by Congress updates the existing Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (“RHYA”), which has been the primary federal program addressing youth and young adult homelessness for the past 45 years. The RHYA authorizes federal funding for organizations that provide emergency services such as crisis housing, basic life necessities, and other supportive services for youth experiencing homelessness and youth victimized by trafficking. RHYTPA, the current bill before Congress, enhances these essential programs covered by RHYA in order to more comprehensively address the needs of homeless youth. The RHYTPA also specifically provides for resources and services to be directed to youth victims of human trafficking and youth at risk of being trafficked.

Key Provisions:

  • Requires grant recipients who provide temporary or longer-term housing and crisis intervention services to minors to include a statistical summary detailing the prevalence of human trafficking in their annual report.
  • Includes services and treatment programs for victims of sexual abuse, trafficking, and gender-based violence as programs that may be considered an acceptable transitional living program to refer a homeless youth to.
  • Provides that staff be trained specifically on human trafficking, trauma, sexual abuse, and sexual assault.
  • Improves the process for referring youth who have been victims of human trafficking to appropriate mental health services.

Take Action:

Additional Resources:

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“My story can change things.” – Pieper Lewis, September 13, 2022

In sentencing child sex trafficking survivor, Pieper Lewis, on September 13, 2022, Judge David Porter stated, “Ms. Lewis, this is the second chance you asked for. You don’t get a third. Do you understand?”

The judge was alluding to his sentencing order that imposed a term of probation in lieu of immediate imprisonment, however the “second chance” he believed he was providing is nevertheless one rooted in punitive responses for trafficking survivors. If the anti-trafficking movement is committed to moving toward truly trauma-informed approaches, “second chances” must not include criminalizing survivors for trauma and offenses committed as a result of trafficking victimization; “second chances” must not include tools of control and punishment that resemble a survivor’s past exploitation, including incessant supervision, adherence to strict rules, placement in locked facilities, and debts to earn freedom.

Yet, in providing a “second chance” to Pieper, Judge Porter ordered Pieper to pay her exploiter’s family $150,000 in restitution,[1] the court an additional $4,000 for expenses incurred in her prosecution,[2] and, for the next five years, to wear an ankle monitor, remain on probation, and live in a facility managed by the Iowa Department of Corrections. Further, if Pieper violates any term of her probation, the court is authorized to reimpose a 20-year term of imprisonment.

Trafficking another person, raping them, exposing them to abuse after abuse is horrendous. While a person being trafficked is still breathing, and therefore technically alive, their life is no longer their own. Victims of human trafficking are subjected to a level of control that enslaves them fully, mind and body. They are subjected to abuses, assaults, and a commodification that reduces them to a product and shreds the soul.

Prosecutors argued that Brooks was asleep at the time he was stabbed and therefore not an immediate danger to Lewis. Such assertions can only be made by someone entirely disconnected from the intensity of trauma and human trafficking. Brooks had drugged and raped Pieper repeatedly, on more than one occasion, contributing to a pattern of sexual violence inflicted on her, as well as other harm, including homelessness and poverty.

Pieper Lewis, a 15-year-old child at the time of her arrest, has not been treated as such, nor has she been treated as the victim she was and, as she rightfully claimed in court, the survivor she is.  Indeed, Pieper powerfully demonstrated her resilience during her sentencing hearing, “Today, my voice will be heard. The story of Pieper Lewis holds power. The trauma of Pieper Lewis carries a ruptured beginning, tormented past and a delayed future. With perseverance, we have the ability to change the direction of our delayed and unknown futures.” But she also spoke to how the criminal justice system had overlooked and ignored her victimization as she was prosecuted for a crime that directly arose from the abuse and trauma she experienced through trafficking, “I wish the events that took place on June 1, 2020 never occurred, but to say there’s only one victim to this story is absurd.”

Even when imprisonment is avoided, criminal and juvenile justice responses are inherently punitive and often compound trauma, contribute to cycles of poverty and exploitation, and fail to positively contribute to the survivors’ healing. They also cement cultural beliefs and practices that blame victims for their own harm suffered. This is the reason more comprehensive approaches to preventing survivors from being criminalized are at the core of survivor-centered reforms.

As a judge in a state that continues to allow children to be charged with prostitution–conduct that is synonymous with their trafficking victimization–Judge Porter’s ruling cemented the victim-blaming beliefs that have undermined efforts to protect rather than punish child sex trafficking victims in Iowa.

Iowa currently joins 23 states that still criminalize children for prostitution, 34 states that still allow children to be charged and prosecuted for other non-violent crimes or trafficking charges that resulted from their trafficking victimization, and 42 states that still do not allow child sex trafficking victims, like Pieper Lewis, to assert a defense to violent felony charges that arose from trafficking victimization. We as a country have a long way to go to recognize, in our laws and within our judicial system, the harm that is caused by continuing to treat victims of trafficking as criminals while ignoring the impact of their victimization.

Together, The Genesis Project, Shared Hope International, and the Iowa Network Against Human Trafficking and Slavery seek just responses for trafficking survivors, including Pieper. We strongly urge dramatic change in how survivors of trafficking are treated in Iowa and beyond. We invite you to join us and help shift the status quo to one that protects survivors rather than blaming and punishing them for their own victimization.

Footnotes:

[1] https://www.gofundme.com/f/vxgt7q

[2]  The prosecution of Pieper Lewis was inherently unjust as the lack of legal protections (e.g., an affirmative defense, non-criminalization protection) available to human trafficking victims under Iowa state law and, thus, unavailable to Pieper, left her with no legal remedies. As a result, despite her status as a child sex trafficking victim, she was arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced for an offense that arose from her trafficking victimization. In response to the injustice of Pieper being prosecuted and sentenced in the death of her abuser, without access to legal protections, advocates and supporters of Pieper have raised over $550,000 (as of September 19, 2022) to pay her restitution order and court fees and provide additional funds to positively impact Pieper’s trajectory. To learn more about best practice for responding to sex trafficking victims engaged in criminal or delinquent conduct, please visit: https://reportcards.sharedhope.org/safeharbor/.

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The WIN Program: Investing in the Women of Our Community

By Kayla Wolff
Growth Strategies Manager: Foundations/Grants/Donors /
Shared Hope International

Share Hope International’s domestic W.I.N. (Women’s Investment Network) program empowers women who have experienced difficult or traumatic circumstances through professional development and training. For 20-25 hours every week during the nine-month, three-phase program, these women learn basic office procedures and are equipped with skills to problem-solve in the workplace, as well as in their personal lives.  WIN women perform tasks in several different departments – from accounting to growth strategies – until they find an area they would like to expand their expertise in. After having the chance to contribute to meaningful projects in the Shared Hope office, each woman receives assistance in crafting a resume and exploring future career opportunities. The program provides a stipend, expanding the experience so each woman is able to get paid while learning.

[Read more…]

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Legislative Update Series: Federal Legislation

Each year, Shared Hope International advocates for legislation aimed at preventing child and youth sex trafficking, while expanding protections and services for survivors. Through collaboration with legislators, survivor leaders, and advocates, we push for federal legislation that will ensure change across the nation. Learn more about some of the federal bills we’re focused on:

Debt Bondage Repair Act

In late 2021, Congress passed the Debt Bondage Repair Act (“DBRA”) as part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021 which was later signed by President Biden. The DBRA prohibits a consumer reporting agency from reporting adverse credit information about a consumer that is the result of severe human trafficking or sex trafficking. Traffickers control their victims through subtle or overt means, including financial control over victims’ income, access to money, or amount of debt. Specifically, traffickers often take out significant debt in their victims’ names or force victims to take out the loan themselves, resulting in default, judgements, and poor credit. Additionally, if a victim can exit the life, this debt often follows them around in the form of defaults, judgements, and poor credit scores, impacting their ability to get safe and stable housing, employment, and even some professional licenses. The DBRA directs the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with promulgating a rule to implement a method by which the DBRA will be carried out. Shared Hope participated in providing comments for the rule making and a final rule was published in late June. To learn more about who is eligible under the DBRA, check out our resource.

Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act

Three additional Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (“TVPRA”) bills have been introduced this year, H.R. 6552, S. 3946, and S. 3949. The bills reauthorize and enhance programs, strengthen laws, and add accountability that reflects the critical need for prevention, protection, and prosecution to combat human trafficking domestically and abroad. Specifically, S. 3946 incorporates Sara’s Law and both S. 3946 and S. 3949 make grants to eligible states to develop, improve, or expand programs that assist child welfare programs with identifying and responding to human trafficking, including children trafficked by a third-party (i.e., not familial) trafficker. In July, the House passed H.R. 6552 and sent the bill to the Senate. You can visit Shared Hope’s campaign site for the TVPRA to ask your Senator to support this necessary legislation.

Trafficking Survivors Relief Act

Finally, in early August, Congress introduced H.R. 8672, the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act (“TSRA”), sponsored by Rep. Owens. The TSRA seeks to permit vacatur, or the 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. Additionally, the TSRA allows for a “human trafficking defense” so that survivors can assert as a defense to prosecution, that the criminal offense was committed as a result of force or coercion due to their trafficking. Although some states have taken action to address this by allowing trafficking victims to expunge or vacate unjust convictions, Congress has yet to take similar action on this issue, leaving victims with no Federal protection from unjust criminalization. Urge your Congresspeople to take action on the TSRA here.

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.

If you are a lawmaker or advocate seeking to craft strong laws to fight juvenile sex trafficking and wish to speak with Shared Hope’s Policy Team for technical assistance, please visit request a consultation.

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2022 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report

By Paulina Andrews and Emily Tegley

2022 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report

On July 19, 2022, the U.S. Department of State released the 2022 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. The TIP Report is federally mandated by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). Each year, the TIP Report evaluates global anti-trafficking efforts and ranks countries into three tiers based on whether the countries have met the TVPA’s minimum standards.

Ranking System:

The 2022 TIP Report’s three-tier system ranks countries based on each country’s efforts to prosecute traffickers, protect trafficking victims, and prevent human trafficking. The tiers are based on the country’s efforts to address human trafficking and not on the size of the country’s human trafficking problem.

Countries that have made efforts to fully meet the TVPA’s minimum standards are placed in Tier 1. Tier 2 status is reserved for countries that have not fully met the TVPA’s minimum standards but are “making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.” The Tier 2 Watch List includes countries that have made efforts to meet the TVPA’s minimum standards, but: (1) “the estimated number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or significantly increasing and the country is not taking proportional concrete actions”; or (2) “there is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year.” Countries that do not meet the TVPA’s minimum standards and are not working to meet the standards are placed in Tier 3. Countries in Tier 3 may not be eligible for non-humanitarian and non-trade related funding.

The 2022 TIP Report also emphasizes the importance of ethically engaging survivors, seeking survivors’ input in decision-making, and employing survivors in a trauma-informed work environment. To achieve these goals, the TIP Report provides recommendations such as: encouraging organizations to budget for hiring survivors; ensuring organizations have obtained informed consent from a survivor before sharing the survivor’s story; compensating survivors appropriately for their time; and fostering a safe, trauma-informed environment in the workplace. Furthermore, the TIP Report addresses how survivors have diverse backgrounds and encourages anti-trafficking efforts to acknowledge that there is no “‘typical’ survivor or story.”  On July 20, the U.S. State Department held a briefing on this year’s TIP report, where the panel echoed the importance of having survivor-informed programs and policies. In keeping with this goal, the U.S. State Department relied on the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, an appointed group of survivor leaders who advise and make recommendations on federal anti-trafficking policies, as subject matter experts to aid with the introductory materials for this year’s report, which is a tool to begin a global conversation on the inclusion of survivor expertise. Further, the panel noted that a dramatic increase in governments actively seeking survivor input could already be seen.

The United States:

The United States maintained its Tier 1 status in 2022, indicating the United States government has made efforts to meet the TVPA’s minimum standards. The TIP Report notes that the United States has maintained prosecution efforts and passed additional legislation to protect victims. For example, the TIP Report cites legislation the United States Congress enacted requiring credit reporting companies to remove adverse credit activity from victims’ reports when that credit activity is connected to their victimization. Additionally, the TIP Report explains the United States has improved its overall protection efforts by increasing the number of victims served and continuing to fund anti-trafficking efforts. Lastly, the TIP Report praised the United States’ prevention efforts, including its three-year national action plan to combat trafficking and ongoing public outreach efforts.

However, the TIP Report makes clear that Tier 1 status does not mean “a country has no human trafficking problem or that it is doing enough to address the crime.” Thus, the United States’ Tier 1 status does not mean the United States has a perfect response to human trafficking, and the TIP Report highlights various areas the United States needs to improve. For example, while the TIP Report indicates that the United States continues to reduce demand, the report also notes that advocates argue this demand-reduction must be trauma-informed, must be survivor-informed, and that diverse experiences and voices must be prioritized. In addition, the TIP Report notes the United States’ response to protecting LGBTQI+ individuals and children who are aging out of services is insufficient.

Furthermore, the TIP Report highlights that trafficking survivors continue to face criminal charges resulting from their victimization. Comprehensive victim protection laws are essential to ensuring survivors are identified and equipped to heal from their trafficking victimization and, if they choose to do so, join anti-trafficking efforts. Additionally, the TIP Report notes that criminal records resulting from the traffickers’ victimization exclude survivors from employment opportunities, housing, higher education, government programs, and from meeting their basic needs. The TIP Report also cites cases where trafficking survivors lost custody of their children because the survivors were required to register as sex offenders due to offenses the survivors committed as a result of being trafficked. To address this issue, the TIP Report encourages state, local, and tribal authorities to “implement policies not to prosecute victims for unlawful acts traffickers compelled them to commit.”

Shared Hope International’s Work:

In 2011, Shared Hope launched the Protected Innocence Challenge project, finding most states failed to recognize the crime of child sex trafficking. Under the project, Shared Hope graded each state on the strength of their laws regarding criminalization of child sex trafficking, offender accountability, tools for investigation and prosecution, and victim protections. By 2019, states had made great progress in areas related to criminalization, but service responses lagged. Shared Hope then retired the Protected Innocence Challenge project and released the Report Cards on Child & Youth Sex Trafficking legislative framework, building on the original Protected Innocence Challenge project and preserving its most fundamental components, but including new policy priorities that focus largely on specialized service responses and access to justice. These policies put survivor protections at the forefront of Shared Hope’s ongoing advocacy efforts.

This advanced legislative framework can be used as a tool for lawmakers seeking to address many of the recommendations found in the 2022 TIP Report. For example, to address and respond to the harmful and re-traumatizing effects of arrest and prosecution, the advanced legislative framework recommends that states enact laws to prevent the arrest, detention, and prosecution of children who have committed crimes as a result of their victimization. Specifically, states can take concrete steps to prevent additional trauma by prohibiting the criminalization of minors under 18 for prostitution offenses, prohibiting the criminalization of sex trafficking victims for non-violent crimes and trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation offenses committed as a result of their victimization, and providing victims with an affirmative defense for violent felonies committed as a result of their trafficking victimization. The criminalization of survivors is concerning, and while there has been an increase in awareness, gaps still remain in written policies seeking to prevent the criminalization of survivors.

Additionally, Shared Hope’s JuST Response Council, a group of over 30 experts from around the country who collaborate to improve responses to child sex trafficking, released field guidance on responding to sex trafficking victim-offender intersectionality and the complexities of charging victims of trafficking with offenses committed as a result of being trafficked. The Victim-Offender Intersectionality Report discusses not only why criminalizing survivors is inherently unjust, but also offers approaches for applying a sex trafficking-informed lens.

Shared Hope Resources:

Take Action:

  • Get informed. Visit the U.S. State Department’s website to review the entire 2022 Trafficking in Persons Report.
  • Advocate for change. Send your state’s report card to your legislators.
  • Join the fight. Sign Shared Hope’s Stop the InJuSTice Campaign petition to encourage states to stop arresting and charging child sex trafficking survivors with prostitution.
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