Expanding Relief for Human Trafficking Victims

Victims often incur criminal charges such as solicitation, drug possession, or theft as a result of their trafficking. For most, this leads to employment, housing, and domestic discrimination that compounds their trauma—placing them at increased risk of repeat exploitation.

Policymakers can adjust state law to expand legal remedies and protect victims on their path to safety and restoration.

The Problem

Vulnerable individuals disproportionately suffer exploitation and incur criminal records.

• Traffickers target disadvantaged individuals who come from minority groups, who suffer from physical or developmental disabilities, mental health diagnoses, and substance use concerns, and who experience childhood sexual abuse, poverty, unemployment, and homelessness.[1]

• National survivor surveys find between 71-91 percent were cited, arrested, or detained by law enforcement and had a criminal record. Of them, 90 percent reported that a portion or all of their records were related to unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked.[2,3]

The legal system meant to protect victims instead disincentivizes disclosure of trafficking and fails to protect victims.

• Nearly 75 percent of victims did not report their trafficking, mostly because of fear or not being asked.[3]

• In some instances, law enforcement and state and local prosecutors threatened to charge, or withhold services from, victims if they did not testify against their traffickers or assist with prosecution—a retraumatizing and even dangerous proposition.[2]

Victims suffer barriers that drive them back into trafficking and unsafe situations.

• Over 90 percent of employers conduct criminal background checks on all or some of job candidates. Unsurprisingly, roughly 72 percent of victims reported difficulty securing jobs.[4]

• Additional financial and social impediments include access to housing, federal and state benefits, credit and loans, work and volunteer clearances, and child custody.

• One survivor remarked: “How can people who have been victimized get their lives together if… society does not let them work?”[3]

Pennsylvania’s affirmative defense, vacatur, and restitution laws are insufficient.

• State law narrowly allows “affirmative defense”—protection against prosecution when trafficking is proven—to victims only when they face prostitution charges.

• Similarly, Pennsylvania’s human trafficking vacatur law allows criminalized victims to petition the court to rescind (“vacate”) certain crimes from their criminal records, providing a judicial recognition that the individual should not have initially been criminalized. Yet, vacatur applies to only six crimes, failing to encompass many trafficking-induced crimes.[5]

• Even if victims have escaped from traffickers, the impact of resulting trauma, poverty, homelessness, and substance use can have reverberating consequences, including subsequent convictions. Thus, prosecuting instead of supporting victims leaves them vulnerable to re-victimization or additional criminalization.[6]

Eligible survivors underutilize available relief.

• Over three-quarters of surveyed victims could not vacate their convictions, citing costs or procedural confusion. Those who did clear their records reported a long and painful process.[3]

• Victim advocates and defense lawyers attribute this to survivor and/or attorney unawareness, inadequate legal representation, or misunderstandings about human trafficking that cause judges and district attorneys to reject petitions.

• Further, Pennsylvania is the only state requiring prosecutorial consent to file a vacatur motion, blocking some petitions from proceeding.

• A Villanova Law Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation roundtable with prosecutors found that, far from taking advantage of the law, “more outreach was required to alert the survivor community about the availability of this remedy. Even where familiarity with the remedy exists, survivors often feel the process is complicated and are hesitant to subject themselves to a stressful and potentially retraumatizing experience.”[6]

The absence of education and public reporting mechanisms obstructs relief implementation and tracking.

• Pennsylvania lacks any formal process for alerting potential victims of affirmative defense or record relief and has no public reporting mechanisms to track criminal record relief laws.

• The number of individuals suffering from exploitation likely far exceeds those benefitting from recognition and support. For context, of known cases and reports:

  • The national hotline identified 5,457 trafficking victims in Pennsylvania since 2007, and ranks 11th for its percentage of reported cases.[7]

  • Over 520 state and federal human trafficking cases have been prosecuted in Pennsylvania from 2000-2024, impacting hundreds of victims.[8]

• Without proper education and tracking systems, justice and accountability in the anti-human trafficking field suffers.

The Solution

Enhance affirmative defense so victims cannot suffer criminal charges for any offense resulting from their trafficking.

• Lawmakers should amend section §3019 of the Human Trafficking Law to apply to all criminal charges, not just prostitution charges.

• The provision must also apply regardless of whether traffickers or buyers are convicted.

Expand vacatur eligible crimes so victims can rescind all criminal record charges resulting from trafficking.

• Lawmakers should expand section §3019 beyond just the six enumerated crimes, giving victims the ability to petition for relief for any criminal charges.

• Pennsylvania can further take a cue from states like Georgia and expressly eliminate fees associated with record relief and automatically distribute court petition forms to any suspected victim.[9]

• Further, explicitly stating a hearing is not required, or allowing electronic communications in hearings, will assist survivors who cannot attend court because of trauma responses or the expense, timing, or inability to safely travel.

Enhance victim awareness and public reporting.

• Policymakers can allocate state and local resources for survivor and advocate outreach and attorney training, improving awareness of both affirmative defense and vacatur.

• Lastly, lawmakers should consider tasking an accountability office or partner agency to track and publicly report on criminal relief statutes. This will assist in monitoring policy implementation and impact and identifying systems gaps and barriers.

Eliminate loopholes unnecessarily blocking victims from conviction protections to which they are entitled.

• Not only are human trafficking cases particularly difficult to prosecute, but surveys find 75 percent of victims could not report their traffickers to police. Further, most traffickers were arrested for non-trafficking offenses and/or had charges dismissed.[3]

• Therefore, the law must ensure a victim can benefit from affirmative defense and vacatur even if the person facilitating their trafficking is not charged or convicted.

• Similarly, legal policies should ensure court systems have fair evidentiary standards for defendants to prove their trafficking experience.

• Instead of requiring district attorneys to approve a trafficking-based vacatur motion, statute should streamline record relief by simply requiring proof of notice.

• Additional considerations include:

  • Funding survivor advocates for individuals suspected of prostitution and human trafficking,

  • Ensuring record clearing is affordable,

  • Training law enforcement on interviewing potential victims and referring them to services,[3] and

  • Amending §3020 so victims are eligible to receive restitution from their traffickers, which they can use to safely reestablish their lives.[6]

Conclusion

Human trafficking survivors should not be criminalized for their own victimization. Luckily, policymakers across the country increasingly recognize punitive policies harm anti-trafficking efforts, and have implemented reforms to expand vacatur, eliminate restrictive fees, and promote victim safety.[9] Pennsylvania can likewise become a national leader and expand legal pathways to avoid repeat victimization and clear unjust convictions.