Therese Majeski is a recent graduate from Cornell College, Iowa with a B.A. in psychology and a minor in applied statistics. She is an aspiring forensic linguist taking a gap year before grad school to write and volunteer. Whether through academics or journalism, Therese is passionate about using the power of language to achieve a more just world and effect positive change.
Being trafficked, whether for sex or labor, is a trauma often compounded by the legal complications victims face, even after escape. Due in part to a legal system that can fail to identify their victimization or accommodate for the coercive circumstances they experience, trafficked individuals may at best struggle to get justice or, at worst, find themselves treated as criminals.
“Trafficking survivors can face charges for crimes that they were compelled to commit during the course of their trafficking,” said Sarah Bessell, Deputy Director at The Human Trafficking Legal Center, an organization dedicated to helping survivors through civil litigation.
According to Bessell, anecdotal evidence indicates that law enforcement in some jurisdictions may not effectively screen voluntary offenders from trafficked individuals who have been coerced into sex work.
A 2019 report published by Polaris confirms a connection between the failure to identify victims and criminalizing them: “The first time trafficking survivors come into contact with law enforcement officers is often as an offender, and not as a victim. Sex trafficking victims are commonly arrested for prostitution or for other crimes such as possession of weapons, drugs, or identity theft, all of which most likely have been orchestrated in some way by their trafficker. Labor traffickers may force their victims to manufacture or sell drugs or to move drugs from place to place. Labor trafficking victims can also be arrested for various offenses such as possession of false identification documents, financial crimes, or minor crimes like trespassing.”
While pointing out the difficulty of collecting accurate data regarding human trafficking, Bessell said, “We’re starting to see more criminal charges in the area of theft. We’re starting to see sex trafficking victims or labor trafficking victims are compelled into robberies and breaking and entering.”
Survivors may also struggle with legal problems involving child custody, taxes, and the theft of their identities by traffickers, Bessell noted.
The Polaris report makes it clear that convictions for crimes they may have been forced to commit can cause significant and long-lasting damage to the lives of trafficking survivors. With criminal records, survivors are at a disadvantage when trying to reintegrate into society. Depending on the conviction and where they live, they can be disqualified from voting and rejected from job, educational, or residential opportunities, all because of crimes likely committed under duress.
Bessell also explained that deportation can be a threat to immigrant trafficking survivors. “Given these past four years, the [Trump] administration’s relentless focus on an anti-immigrant campaign, we’ve seen a rise in the number of trafficking victims, clients, who are put into deportation proceedings at multiple points in the timeline. So, either law enforcement failed to identify them as a trafficking victim, and they were put into deportation proceedings, or they have a pending T visa and they were picked up by immigration and put into deportation proceedings.”
Regardless of whether they are subject to criminal charges or deported, trafficking survivors may also be encumbered by material witness holds. As explained by a 2020 report by The Human Trafficking Legal Center, a material witness hold is a legal measure enabling the justice system to support cases against traffickers by forcing legal testimony from trafficking survivors; in order to accomplish this, survivors are frequently arrested and held in custody. Such detentions can lead to survivors being maltreated and sexually assaulted, further harming people who have already been through significant trauma.
Even in the absence of criminal records, immigration difficulties, or material witness holds, trafficking survivors can struggle to find the justice they deserve. According to Bessell, victims of labor trafficking, in particular, may have limited legal recourse due in part to a greater public focus on sex trafficking and the difficulty of proving that labor trafficking occurred.
“The legal system has a great capacity to be a remedy for healing and for justice. But at the same time, it also has capacity to cause great harm and additional trauma to survivors,” Bessell said.
Ultimately, to effectively fight human trafficking, the US justice system must massively improve and alter the support offered to survivors in the contexts of screenings, criminal records, immigration, and material witness holds.
Sources:
Bessell, Sarah. Video Interview. December 18, 2020.
