Rising Above the Criminalization of Human Trafficking Survivors
[Music]
i was working as an attorney at one of
san diego’s largest law firms when i
first met sarah
she was a young 20-something woman who
was beautiful and intelligent
and she had been trafficked when she was
just 16 years old by her boyfriend
darren
it’s not what you’re thinking he didn’t
kidnap her and hold her against her will
no it was much more nuanced than that
darren used his charisma
and his charm to get sarah to fall in
love with him
and after a few months he asked her if
she could help him make some extra money
by this time she was madly in love with
darren and she wanted to do whatever she
could
to help out he told her he wanted her to
go on dates with men
now as a naive 16 year old girl sarah
didn’t understand at the time that
those men that she went on dates with
would expect to have sex with her
if she refused darren would beat her
into submission
he took every penny she earned and he
demanded that she had a
thousand dollar a day quota if she
didn’t need it she wouldn’t be allowed
to eat or sleep
this went on for quite a while and sarah
felt trapped she didn’t know how to get
away from him
every time she tried to leave him darren
would threaten to harm her family
until one day she had a date with a man
at a hotel they agreed on a price
and then immediately he identified
himself as an undercover cop
at first sarah thought finally someone’s
going to help me escape from darren
but that’s not what happened the cop
arrested her
for crimes that darren had forced her to
commit
now there’s a lot of misinformation out
there about human trafficking so let’s
just make sure we understand what we’re
talking about human trafficking is the
exploitation of another person
by means of force fraud or coercion
for purposes of commercial sex or labor
human trafficking is also exploiting a
child for sex
in that case there doesn’t need to be
force fraud or coercion because a child
can’t consent to be sold for sex
now what you don’t hear anywhere in this
definition is crossing a border
human trafficking doesn’t involve
crossing a border at all you can be
trafficked in a single city and never
leave
if you illegally bring somebody across
an international border
that’s called human smuggling which is a
completely different crime
now no one is immune from human
trafficking it impacts boys girls men
and women all races all nationalities
can be trafficked but there are some
groups that are more vulnerable to being
trafficked
for example foster kids victims of
poverty and abuse
lgbtq individuals and what most people
don’t know about human trafficking
is that when law enforcement shows up on
the scene of a crime where human
trafficking has been committed
they think that law enforcement helps
the victim
and arrests the perpetrator but
unfortunately that is not the experience
of most human trafficking survivors
a study by the national survivor network
found that 91
of survivors surveyed had been arrested
at least once
over half had been arrested for the
first time as a child
and over 40 percent had been arrested
more than nine times
having an arrest or a criminal record of
any kind
is devastating for anyone it’s hard to
get a job
it’s hard to get a place to live student
loans
or public benefits for a human
trafficking survivor
having a criminal record traps them into
a life of abuse
exploitation and poverty i know it
sounds cliche
but i went to law school to help people
when i started law school
i didn’t know exactly how i was going to
help people but i assumed i would figure
it out along the way
when i graduated from law school i was
fortunate to get a clerkship working for
a federal judge in san diego
and that clerkship opened up the door
for me to work at a big law firm in san
diego
while i knew i wanted to help people as
a lawyer i also knew that i had student
loans
so i figured i’d work at this big law
firm i’d pay off my student loans
get some great legal experience and i
could volunteer
in order to fulfill my desire to help
people
when i first learned about human
trafficking i was appalled at how
prevalent it was in our community
i asked one simple question what can i
do to help
and the answer i got over and over again
was we need lawyers
we need lawyers to help survivors so i
founded the lawyers club of san diego
human trafficking collaborative to
engage the legal community in the fight
against human trafficking
it was around this time that i first met
sarah she was a bright and bubbly young
woman
and she was so resilient meeting sarah
changed my life
she never let anything come in the way
of of her achieving her dreams
and with all she’d overcome and all she
had done
to move past her exploitation she still
had these criminal issues hanging over
her head
survivors like sarah they need a fresh
start and they need a clean criminal
record
at that time there was a number of
states that had laws that helped
survivors
clean up their records called vacator
laws unfortunately california didn’t
have a vacater law
so i worked with lawyers club of san
diego to advocate for vacationer law in
california
and when we passed that law sarah was my
very first vacature client
i knew that there were so many other
survivors out there like sarah
who needed help cleaning up their
records and that’s when i knew exactly
what i was supposed to do with my law
degree
and it was around that time that i
decided to quit my job at the law firm
and start a nonprofit called free to
thrive to help humans trafficking
survivors with their legal needs
when i started free to thrive we had one
year of funding
and i was the only employee but i quit
my job with a hope and a prayer
and after almost four years we have 12
employees
and we’ve helped almost 200 human
trafficking survivors
people often ask me why would you quit a
lucrative law firm job
to go start a non-profit
the honest answer is there was never a
thought in my mind not too
so you may be wondering what ever
happened to sarah well
sarah got her ged while she was in the
residential program when we first met
and then she went off to college where
she got straight a’s and was on the
dean’s honor roll
and with the help of freda thrive sarah
became one of the first human
trafficking survivors in the state of
california
to clear their record using california’s
vacateur law
now with this new law we can help
survivors clean up their records
after the fact but there are so many
survivors who are serving time in prison
who are just like sarah so now we’re
advocating for a new law
to help survivors out of prison
this law would allow judges to reduce
sentences for human trafficking
survivors
and when we pass it we’re going to help
survivors get out of prison
but even this new law doesn’t go far
enough we have to change the paradigm
we have to stop criminalizing human
trafficking survivors
and in this moment of reckoning over the
racial inequality in our society
we have to acknowledge that survivors of
color are criminalized at higher rates
than white survivors
therefore we need to educate our judges
law enforcement and prosecutors
about the racial inequalities in our
criminal justice system
and work to address them
i started this work with one question
what can i do to help
and asking that question i found my
purpose
and my passion so what can you do to
help
well you can help raise awareness simply
by sharing this
talk knowledge is power if you’re a
parent
i hope you’ll take the time to talk to
your kids about internet safety
and protect them and their friends from
human traffickers
anyone can help by getting involved in a
non-profit
anywhere that helps human trafficking
survivors we all have a part to play in
the fight against human trafficking
and i hope you’ll join me thank you
you