June 2024

Last month I was given the amazing opportunity to present on the forced and coerced criminalization of survivors of human trafficking at the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic & Sexual Violence (MCEDSV) annual conference.

MCEDSV is an organization I have been following for a number of years. Their Human Trafficking Toolkit for Domestic & Sexual Violence Agencies (https://tinyurl.com/mcedsvtoolkit) has informed the trainings I’ve provided to agencies working with survivors, highlighting the intersections between domestic violence and human trafficking.

The toolkit emphasizes that “human trafficking and other forms of domestic and sexual violence do not ‘occur in silos’ (National Network to End Domestic Violence, n.d.). Instead, the two types of victimization overlap in many cases, and understanding the dynamics that occur in other relational crimes can be helpful in understanding the relationship between traffickers and trafficked individuals.”

A definition I use often in trainings to highlight this distinction is this:

Domestic violence - In domestic violence relationships, the abusive partner is using means of Force, Fraud, Coercion (various forms of abusive tactics) in order to assert Power and Control in the relationship.

Human Trafficking - In trafficking relationships, the trafficker is using means of Force, Fraud, and Coercion in order to assert Power and Control in the relationship in order to cause the survivor to engage in work which benefits the trafficker.​

The reality is that “[b]oth trafficking crimes and crimes involving domestic and sexual violence are relational and involve a pattern of power and control.” And “[i]dentifying that a survivor of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking has also experienced human trafficking, or vice versa, allows us to better help them see the full array of services that may be instrumental in helping them move forward. Human trafficking survivors then have access to a broader menu of options, rights, and remedies that an advocate can support them in accessing.”

This is certainly a reality I have seen in my work. Survivors of trafficking have often experienced other forms of interpersonal and systemic violence in addition to their trafficking. This experience is called polyvictimization. When providers don’t seek to address the full range of exploitative and abusive experiences incurred by the clients we work with, we fail to identify the scope of resources available to them as they work to heal, recover, and thrive.

“It is possible that no one is better situated to work with trafficking survivors or more expert in the patterns of coercive control that rule their lives than those working with survivors of domestic and sexual violence."

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May 2024

In this final post of my Best Practices series, I will focus on the areas of Official Documentation, Confidentiality, and Fines and Fees.

10. Official Documentation: Whether the statute requires a victim to produce official documentation of their trafficking experience.

It is important not to require official documentation, such as a certified record of the trafficker’s conviction of trafficking, because of the variety of victim experiences and the difficulty for trafficking victims in meeting specific documentation burdens. However, it is also helpful for statutes to acknowledge the strong weight official documentation has in meeting evidentiary burdens, should a survivor have such documentation.

11. Confidentiality: Criminal record relief statutes should include provisions designed to protect confidentiality throughout the process. Failure to protect confidentiality defeats the purpose of these laws and puts survivors in danger. Statutes should allow motions to be filed as sealed documents and ensure that documents remain shielded from public disclosure. States were graded based on what type of confidentiality of the petition for relief, or records of the proceedings, included.

To achieve high marks in the “Confidentiality” category, Polaris’ suggests that statutes should have “automatically seal all motions and petition papers connected to the survivor applying for criminal record relief.”

For many survivors, there is shame or fear that comes with the filing of a petition for vacatur as it re-exposes survivors to the court process and the risks that come with asserting a claim in open court. To have a statute acknowledge the legitimacy of those feelings by protecting confidentiality, or to go even further and provide automatic protection for survivors by shielding their application and the related proceedings from the public, demonstrates to these survivors that the state perceives those feelings and safety concerns as valid.

12. Fines or Fees: This section includes provisions related to tfines or fees associated with either the prior criminal case or the record relief petition.

Best practice statutes hold that fees and fines related to original conviction or sentence are returned to survivors once they receive criminal record relief. As well as explicitly stating survivors will be not charged any fees to apply for criminal record relief.

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April 2024

In this final post of my Best Practices series, I will focus on the areas of Official Documentation, Confidentiality, and Fines and Fees.

10. Official Documentation: Whether the statute requires a victim to produce official documentation of their trafficking experience.

It is important not to require official documentation, such as a certified record of the trafficker’s conviction of trafficking, because of the variety of victim experiences and the difficulty for trafficking victims in meeting specific documentation burdens. However, it is also helpful for statutes to acknowledge the strong weight official documentation has in meeting evidentiary burdens, should a survivor have such documentation.

11. Confidentiality: Criminal record relief statutes should include provisions designed to protect confidentiality throughout the process. Failure to protect confidentiality defeats the purpose of these laws and puts survivors in danger. Statutes should allow motions to be filed as sealed documents and ensure that documents remain shielded from public disclosure. States were graded based on what type of confidentiality of the petition for relief, or records of the proceedings, included.

To achieve high marks in the “Confidentiality” category, Polaris’ suggests that statutes should have “automatically seal all motions and petition papers connected to the survivor applying for criminal record relief.”

For many survivors, there is shame or fear that comes with the filing of a petition for vacatur as it re-exposes survivors to the court process and the risks that come with asserting a claim in open court. To have a statute acknowledge the legitimacy of those feelings by protecting confidentiality, or to go even further and provide automatic protection for survivors by shielding their application and the related proceedings from the public, demonstrates to these survivors that the state perceives those feelings and safety concerns as valid.

12. Fines or Fees: This section includes provisions related to tfines or fees associated with either the prior criminal case or the record relief petition.

Best practice statutes hold that fees and fines related to original conviction or sentence are returned to survivors once they receive criminal record relief. As well as explicitly stating survivors will be not charged any fees to apply for criminal record relief.

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March 2024

As we continue to investigate the details of record relief legislation and highlight what best practice legislation looks like for survivors, this update will focus on the areas of Hearing Requirements and Burden of Proof.

8. Hearing Requirement: Whether or not the survivor is required to appear at hearings related to the criminal record relief process. Whether or not a survivor must appear before a court at any point in this process can make a significant difference in whether relief is accessible in practice as well as in theory. For example, survivors may have safety or financial concerns that make it difficult for them to attend hearings.

Survivors may not want or be able to physically appear in court for a hearing. Many will have to face financial burdens such as finding legal representation, paying for transportation, taking time off work, or finding childcare in order to make it to court to seek relief from a conviction they should never have received. This burden punishes a survivor further for an act they were forced, coerced, or compelled into committing. Other survivors whose traffickers are still at large may be fearful of their trafficker finding out about their application and appearing at the court building. Polaris Report.

Additionally, forcing a survivor to appear in the same court where they were convicted during their trafficking experience or forcing them to discuss their case in open court can re-traumatize a survivor who is working to heal. SRP Guide.

The strongest statutes would explicitly not have a hearing required. Polaris Report. Unfortunately, as of the release of Polaris’ 2023 version of the report, no state’s statute contains such language.

Massachusetts’ pending bill H.1701/S.1002 “An Act Supporting Survivors of Trafficking and Abuse and Increasing Access to Opportunities through Sealing and/or Expungement” would be the first bill in the country to implement this best practice.

9. Burden of Proof: The threshold a survivor must meet in order to receive record relief.

The ideal burden of proof is a preponderance of the evidence standard for survivors to show the offense was committed as a result of their exploitation as a trafficking victim. Both Michigan ( Mich. Comp. Laws § 780.621(13) (2019)) and Idaho (Idaho Code § 67-3014(10) (2020)) follow this best practice.

This less restrictive evidentiary burden acknowledges that because of the variety of survivor experiences it is likely that each survivor will have varied amounts of proof to offer in support of their claim. The most harmful practice is that of statutes that are silent on the evidentiary burden. This provides no guidance for survivors applying for relief, which can be particularly harmful for pro se applicants.

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February 2024

As we continue to investigate the details of record relief legislation and highlight what best practice legislation looks like for survivors, this update will focus on the areas of Nexus to Trafficking and Time Limitations & Wait Times.

6. Nexus to Trafficking: The extent to which the offense needs to be connected to the survivor’s trafficking experience.

The best practice for this category requires the survivor to prove only that the offense was committed “as a result” of the trafficking, meaning a survivor’s ability to draw a causal connection between the trafficking and the criminal act is what is required.

To require more than this forces a survivor to fit into a narrow framework of a stereotypical trafficking scheme by proving the criminal act is an immediate consequence of a trafficker’s use of force or coercion. Not all traffickers use the same means for controlling their victims. Requiring a survivor to prove that they were a victim of trafficking at the time of the offense and that the offense was committed as a result of that victim status, and nothing more, “recognizes that the path of a trafficking victim will rarely ever be perfectly sequential or linear and that the instability that commonly results from having been a victim of trafficking can impact a survivor’s options and actions long after they have exited their trafficking situation.” Polaris 2019 Report.

7. Time Limitations and Wait Times: How long a survivor must wait after receiving their conviction before seeking record relief.

These limitations serve no practical purpose. In many cases these limitations cause actual harm, either forcing survivors to start the cumbersome process of criminal record relief before they are emotionally ready, or prolonging the time in which they live with the barrier of a criminal record. An ideal criminal record relief statute would have no time limits or wait times at all for survivors.

Michigan’s statute (Mich. Comp. Laws § 780.621(7) (2019)) has no required time period in which a survivor must wait before filing a motion to set aside their conviction and this is the best practice for record relief statutes in this area.

Time limitations force survivors to live with criminal records they should never have received, or alternatively, can force survivors to seek relief before they have adequately recovered from their traumatic experience. Removing restrictions on application periods allows survivors to seek relief when it is most appropriate in their own recovery journey.

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December 2023

As we continue to investigate the details of record relief legislation and highlight what best practice legislation looks like for survivors, this update will focus on the areas of Eligible Offenses and Judicial Discretion.

4. Eligible Offenses: The number and kind of offenses covered in a statute. As the Survivor Reentry Project highlighted, traffickers may force victims to engage in a broad range of criminal behaviors.

The nature of trafficking is such that survivors can be forced to commit a wide range of offenses such as trespassing, selling or purchasing drugs, and even violence. Ideally, the best statutes include that all offenses are eligible for relief and therefore, all survivors have the ability to clear their criminal records.

Wyoming (Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-2-708(c) (2019)) permits vacatur of any offense a person was convicted of while a victim of trafficking. As seen in the NSN survey, traffickers force their victims to engage in any number of criminal acts depending on the nature of their exploitative scheme. Allowing vacatur for any type of offense acknowledges the variety of ways trafficking victims are exploited and does not punish a survivor for not having been victimized by their trafficker in a particular manner.

5. Judicial Discretion: Whether a court may “grant relief where it finds the elements of the statute satisfied and take action on issues not explicitly covered in the statute.

As demonstrated by the NSN survey, exploitation due to trafficking varies greatly and it is not possible for a statute, no matter how carefully drafted, to anticipate every trafficking situation that may arise. The best statutes allow courts discretion to rule over a prosecutor’s objection. If a court is not permitted discretion, statutes will often instead turn to prosecutors to consent to a survivor’s application for relief before a court may hear the survivor’s petition.

To bar a court from discretion “essentially puts a prosecutor in the role of a judge in determining whether the survivor was trafficked at the time of their conviction, eliminating the ability of the court to act independently.” Polaris 2019 Report.

This is especially problematic because prosecutors often lack the incentive to admit that they have wrongfully charged someone, whereas leaving discretion with the court retains an impartial arbiter of the facts surrounding a survivor’s conviction.

To accommodate this, Polaris suggests that an ideal statute includes language where the court “shall” or “must” order relief if the survivor meets the requirements set forth in the statute.

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November 2023

For my next several @EJA updates, I will be digging into the details of record relief legislation and highlighting what best practice legislation looks like for survivors. For these posts, I will be drawing from my publication in the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law “Criminal Record Relief for Human Trafficking Survivors: Analysis of Current State Statutes and the Need for a Federal Model Statute” as well as Polaris’ State Report Cards report. It also looks to states that received some of the highest rankings from that report.

For my November 2023 update, I will be addressing the areas of Legal Effect and Records Protection.

1. Legal Effect: This section considers the breadth of relief offered. The highest scores for legal effect are afforded those states that offer full relief. These are laws that return the survivor to pre-record status. For example, the statute both indicates vacatur on the merits and provides for records destruction in the same proceeding. As I discussed in my February 2023 Update, this is the most effective form of record relief.​

Vacatur on the merits is “the closest thing to a legal recognition that the survivor should not have been convicted in the first place. It indicates that had the court known all the information that is now available, the survivor would not have been convicted of the offense,” highlighting the substantive defect of the earlier proceedings. Polaris 2019 Report at 14.

2. Records Protection: Survivors frequently report that records they had gone through a legal process to clear still show up in background checks and other situations where these records could be used against them.

The rubric takes into account whether laws include language that make it clear these records should be destroyed or otherwise made permanently inaccessible. Full marks are given when the record is purged and not accessible by anyone.

3. Arrests & Adjudications: Whether the statute extends relief only to adjudicated findings of guilt or all elements of a record, such as arrests, juvenile adjudications, and non-prosecuted cases, dismissals. Best practice statutes comprehensively address all elements of a criminal record, not solely enumerated or non-violent offenses.

Providing record vacating for every form a criminal record can take allows survivors to move forward with their lives without the professional, educational, and other hurdles that come from having a residual criminal record.

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October 2023

For my next several @EJA updates, I will be digging into the details of record relief legislation and highlighting what best practice legislation looks like for survivors.

In March 2019, the national anti-trafficking organization Polaris, along with the Survivor Reentry Project, Brooklyn Law School, the University of Baltimore Law School, and numerous survivor consultants, released a report based on this data identifying the critical components of effective criminal record relief law. The report outlines a number of categories when determining the efficacy of a record relief statute for trafficking survivors.​

As I discussed in my January 2023 post, all but a handful of states and the federal government have some form of record relief statute for trafficking survivors. However, each of these statutes varies in the scope of relief they offer. As advocates across the country seek ways to improve care for survivors of trafficking, these disparities in relief efficacy are creating a legal gap among states. This can prove problematic for survivors because traffickers do not confine their trafficking activities to a single state’s borders.​

Victims who are compelled to commit crimes in different states during their trafficking experiences currently have varying access to record relief solely based on where they happened to be at the time they were exploited— something often entirely out of their control. Given the reality of trafficking, a uniform approach by the states would be the most effective way to assure survivors relief.

Since a uniform approach does not yet exist, I want to take some time to discuss Polaris's Report and highlight best practices for record relief for survivors.​

The report identifies a host of elements that factor into the efficacy of a record relief statute and divides those elements into eleven separate categories in which Polaris compares the at-issue state statute to the best practice they have identified for each category. The state's score in each category adds up to the grade its statute receives and Polaris has ranked every state on a list.​

I will spend my next several updates going through small groups of those elements in turn to discuss why they matter to survivors seeking relief.​

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September 2023

For my September 2023 Update, I will be diving into the barriers created by criminal records. This update draws from the Survivor Reentry Project training series and the video for this topic can be found here.

A criminal record demonstrates the reach of the criminal legal system separate and apart from detention. A record is created every time a person touches the criminal legal system where there is a risk of incarceration. A person does not necessarily have to have been detained or even arrested for a record to have been created. In fact, many people who have had criminal legal involvement aren’t aware of the extent to which their record follows them into the future.

A criminal record contains basic identifying information as well as a history of residence addresses, and what criminal offenses were charged (regardless of the outcome of the case). They can also contain physical descriptions of individuals including and distinguishing marks they may have, such as tattoos or perceived race/gender. In some jurisdictions they include information about tax liens and declarations of bankruptcy.

Two of the most significant impacts of a criminal record are the barriers created to future housing and employment. The National Survivor Network’s 2016 survey of 130 trafficking survivors reported that, of the 91% of respondents who had incurred records during the course of being trafficked, 73% faced employment barriers and 58% faced housing barriers.

Survivors with criminal records or convictions may also be disqualified from financial aid and private loans if they seek to continue their education. Polaris Report. They may lose or be unable to regain custody of their children. Survivor Reentry Project. They may not be able to access government benefits. Or they may face removal from the country or be barred from re-entry because they are a foreign national with a criminal conviction.

According to the SRP's guide, such a criminal record can serve as “a constant reminder of past abuse and a source of tremendous shame. Survivors often face the tragic dilemma of explaining to a potential employer or housing manager the source of their arrest or conviction and therefore must choose between sharing their trafficking experience or simply walking away from an opportunity.”

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April 2023

Today marks six months at @GBLS and a quarter of the way through my @Equal Justice America Human Trafficking Fellowship! Attached is a report which documents in detail the work I’ve accomplished over the last six months.

It has been a phenomenal opportunity to have my Equal Justice America project placed within Greater Boston Legal Service’s (GBLS) CORI & Re-entry Project.

Much of my work over the last six months has been a balance of (1) working directly with clients who have been impacted by criminalization and the devastating effects of a criminal record on securing employment, housing, and continuing education, as well as (2) focused legislative advocacy in order to improve record clearing opportunities for criminalized survivors for whom these effects are barriers to thriving and recovers, and (3) active coalition building with local and national partners.

I believe having a balance of work across these areas is the most effective way to approach justice-related work such as this project. I am able to work to provide direct relief to survivors who are facing barriers in this moment, while simultaneously thinking systemically about how to improve circumstances for survivors in the future who are not yet experiencing these barriers.

I have been so grateful for the opportunity to engage in this work for the past six months and look forward to all that will be accomplished during the remainder of my fellowship.

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March 2023

Over my first five months, I worked with a team from Jane Doe, Inc. (Massachusetts’ domestic violence coalition) and Boston University Law School’s Immigrant Rights & Human Trafficking Clinic to draft a bill which aims to expand access to record relief for survivors of sexual and domestic violence and trafficking (SDVT).

The bill, if passed, will eliminate the waiting period for sealing of criminal records if a survivor of SDVT can establish a connection between their victimization and criminal record and expand availability of expungement, vacatur and affirmative defense for survivors of SDVT who can show their criminal acts were as a result of their victimization.

On January 11, 2023, our team met with interested legislators and their staffers to discuss the need for the bill and what we hope it will accomplish. I provided a brief overview and fielded questions about the need for record relief for survivors and how this bill would go far to expand access to record relief.

The bill was filed on January 20, 2023 by Senators Adam Gomez and Liz Miranda in the Senate and Representatives Tram Nguyen and Christine Barber under the name “An act supporting survivors of trafficking and abuse and encouraging increased access to opportunities through expungement and/or sealing of records.”

Our team is now engaged in an awareness-raising campaign to garner organizational sign-ons and additional legislative co-sponsorships. The legislative session will run throughout the rest of the year.

If you are a Massachusetts resident and are interested in engaging in advocacy for this bill, you can engage in the following steps:

• Fill out this form to be added as a supporting organization/individual: https://tinyurl.com/yc6y98hj
• Email your legislator at: https://www.votervoice.net/GBLS/Campaigns/100809/Respond and ask them to sign on as a co-sponsor of the bill!
• Direct message me if you’re interested in further efforts!

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February 2023

As I continue to provide services to trafficking survivors with criminal records through the Greater Boston Legal Services CORI & Re-entry Project, I think it would be helpful to break down what protections Massachusetts provides to survivors looking to clear their records.

Before that, I want to give a brief overview of what exactly I mean when I say “record clearing.” Record clearing, or criminal record relief, provides an avenue for survivors to clear their records of charges obtained from crimes their traffickers forced, coerced, or compelled them to commit, or which they committed as a means of survival or coping. A cleared record would not appear on a standard background check and would not be visible to employers and landlords. There are three primary forms of record relief: sealing, expungement, and vacatur.​

Record-sealing is the least effective of these options when it stands alone because the conviction remains; sealing only hides it from public view. While a sealed conviction would not turn up on a standard background check, a court order can still allow a party access to the sealed record.​

Records that are expunged, while inaccessible to the public, can remain visible to certain government agencies, and prosecutors have the option to use the conviction against the survivor in later legal proceedings.​

Vacatur, particularly when it is paired with automatic sealing, is the next most effective option because it exonerates the survivor of any guilt and can remove every trace of the record from the criminal record system.​

Additionally, pardons, a forgiveness of the offense by the Governor, go even further and relieve all collateral consequences based on state law.

In 2018, Massachusetts passed its first trafficking-specific vacatur statute. The statute provides that offenses related to prostitution and simple possession of a controlled substance are able to be vacated if the applicant can establish they were a trafficking victim at the time of the offense and that they committed the offense as a result of their being trafficked.

However, as I mentioned in a previous post, the range of offenses for which survivors are arrested and prosecuted is far broader than just these two categories.

Massachusetts has other general record clearing laws that are available to survivors just as they are to the rest of the population, but the current vacatur statute remains the only specific remedy for survivors.

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January 2023

For my January @EJA Human Trafficking Fellowship update, I’ll provide some context on trafficking-specific record clearing and how this issue is being addressed across the country. As discussed in my previous update, it is abundantly apparent that the incursion of records is a frequent issue trafficking survivors face during and after exiting their trafficking experience.​

In 2010, New York became the first state to create a law which allowed survivors of trafficking to vacate prostitution and related convictions that were a result of having been trafficked. The law became a model for legislation in other states to follow and now, all but three states and the federal government have followed suit and have some form of record relief on the books for trafficking victims.​

However, each of these statutes varies in the scope of relief they offer. As advocates across the country seek ways to improve care for survivors of trafficking, these disparities in relief efficacy are creating a legal gap among states. This can prove problematic for survivors because traffickers often do not confine their trafficking activities to a single state’s borders.​

Victims who are compelled to commit crimes in different states during their trafficking experiences have varying access to record relief solely based on where they happened to be at the time they were exploited— something often entirely out of their control. Given the reality of trafficking, a uniform approach by the states would be the most effective way to assure survivors relief. But, with the wide disparity of protection among states, that vision unfortunately appears to still be a long way off.

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December 2022

I’d like to use this @Equal Justice America Fellowship update to discuss the need for my Human Trafficking Fellowship at @GBLS. But before I do that, I think it is helpful to lay a foundation on what exactly I’m talking about when I say “human trafficking.”

Human trafficking is generally defined as the “recruitment, transportation, harboring, or receipt of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act, involuntary servitude or debt bondage by means of force, fraud, or coercion.” 22 U.S.C. § 7102(11). I tend to boil this down to the idea of compelled work. In labor trafficking, this means workers may feel like they have to keep working for someone even if they don’t want to. In sex trafficking, this occurs when a minor (under 18) is given anything in exchange for any sex act or when an adult (over 18) is coerced or forced into commercial sex by someone else. Freedom Network USA.

Often, as part of the trafficking scheme, the trafficker will coerce or force the person they’re exploiting into engaging in criminal activity. In one survey of 130 trafficking survivors conducted by the @National Survivor Network, over 90% of respondents reported that they had been arrested at least once during the course of being trafficked. And over half of all respondents believed that 100% of the arrests, charges, and convictions they had incurred were directly related to their trafficking experience.

These charges can vary widely in nature depending on a host of factors such as: how a trafficker exploits their victim, the types of crime law enforcement in a given district enforces and in what way, and on the systemic injustices a given victim may be vulnerable to.

For sex trafficking victims, these crimes are frequently prostitution charges, but may also include other charges such as weapons, drugs, financial crimes, and identity theft. Labor traffickers, like sex traffickers, can also benefit from forcing a victim to commit illegal acts such as selling or cultivating drugs or, commonly at the U.S. border, forcing individuals to be drug mules or bring people into the country illegally. Additionally, other common offenses for labor trafficking can include possession of false identification documents, financial crimes, or other minor offenses such as trespassing. Minors who are trafficked are often charged with status offenses such as truancy and running away.​ Survivor Reentry Project.

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November 2022

For my Fellowship, I am working within the @Greater Boston Legal Service “Criminal Offender Record Information” (CORI) & Re-entry Project. This project was started in 2008 in response to numerous requests for help with the devastating effects of criminal records.

The Project provides a host of services to clients with criminal records who are interested in having those records cleared. The Project provides direct services, hosts regular record sealing clinics, provides trainings on sealing to Boston-area pro bono attorneys, creates pro bono self-help materials, and engages in impact advocacy through appellate and legislative means.

The Project focuses on areas with high rates of poverty and unemployment, common results of a criminal record. “In general, work is the pathway to a better life and out of poverty, but past criminal records stop countless people from getting jobs, housing, and access to other opportunities.” CORI Project.

My Fellowship is focused on the effects criminal records have on survivors of trafficking. In my next update, I will discuss the common theme of forced and coerced criminality of trafficking survivors and why this Fellowship project can be such a benefit to survivors in Massachusetts.

Here are some highlights of the things I have accomplished in my first month at GBLS:

• Created promotional materials for the launch of the Trafficking Survivor Conviction Relief Initiative and distributed to area organizations and at clinic outreach events
• Added trafficking screening questions to CORI Project’s Intake form
• Conducted intakes at bi-weekly Boston Bar Association CORI Clinics and assisted clients in applying for sealing
• Provided trainings to area advocates on trafficking screening and record relief

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October 2022

With the support of the Equal Justice America Human Trafficking Fellowship, I recently began work in Greater Boston Legal Services’ CORI & Re-entry Project. In this role, GBLS and I will launch an innovative and first-of-its-kind project for Massachusetts which focuses on three areas:

1. Providing direct legal assistance to survivors related to criminal record sealing, expungement, vacatur, pardons, and appeals;

2. Conducting outreach and trainings to community organizations providing services to survivors to educate them about criminal record relief options; and

3. Engaging in legislative advocacy and policy work to improve and pass new laws related to the criminalization of survivors.

This project’s proposed casework and systemic reform work is informed by the experiences and needs of survivors. Trafficking victimization and other barriers to recovery and financial stability are a result of the legacy and institutionalization of racism and other forms of oppression. Vacatur, record clearance, and pardons are remedies that are life-changing for individuals who were trafficked and are trapped in poverty or unemployment based on their criminal record.

In 2016, National Survivor Network released a survey it had conducted of 130 trafficking survivors. Over 90% of respondents reported they had been arrested at least once during the course of being trafficked. Over half indicated that 100% of their arrests, charges, and convictions were directly related to their trafficking experience. The types of charges can vary widely in nature depending on the trafficking scheme that was employed against the survivor.

During my time working in the University of Michigan Law School Human Trafficking Clinic, and in researching for publication, the great need for record clearing advocacy for survivors of trafficking became abundantly clear.

I am so grateful to EJA for the opportunity to engage in this crucial work! Keep an eye out for further updates on why this project is of such great need.