Legal Services
Ninety percent of sex trafficking victims are arrested and charged with crimes that are related to their exploitation. Having a criminal record creates barriers to employment, housing, education, and financial freedom. We help trafficking survivors who were criminalized in Southern California clear their records and get a fresh start using California’s criminal vacatur law (P.C.§ 236.14). As long as a client has at least one record in Southern California, we clear their records in all jurisdictions throughout the state.
Education
Human trafficking is a hidden epidemic. The real change goes beyond helping individual clients. A better world for survivors is one where professionals, advocates, families, and community members take an active role in creating meaningful change. That’s why we train stakeholders and provide case support to attorneys working with survivors to create a more survivor-centered and trauma-informed legal system. We also aim to prevent human trafficking, identify survivors, and connect them to supportive services through our community training programs.
Policy Advocacy
Our work providing direct legal services gives us a unique perspective on the ways that current laws fail to protect survivors. We apply the lessons we learn from providing free legal services to policy advocacy by working to change the law to create a more trauma-informed legal system, where survivors can walk into court and experience a truth-seeking, problem-solving branch of government that protects them from further harm.