The Survivor Model to Eliminate Human Trafficking

The commercial sex industry fuels human trafficking. Yet, instead of adequately deterring exploiters, Pennsylvania law places criminal and social penalties on victims engaging in prostitution. With demand unchecked and victim supports limited, the exploitation cycle continues.

The Survivor Model dismantles this system. 

By shifting penalties to those driving demand and increasing exit pathways for victims, this coherent demand-penalizing and survivor-supporting framework targets systemic inequalities and violence by increasing exploiter accountability and victim empowerment.  

The commercial sex industry perpetuates systemic exploitation. 

Commercial sex and prostitution rank among the top reported  human trafficking venues nationally. They similarly account for roughly half of Pennsylvania’s reported sex trafficking cases.[1] 

Responding to policy and cultural incentives, the commercial sex market outpaces supply and motivates pimps and traffickers to increasingly exploit vulnerable people in prostitution. Individuals vulnerable to poverty, houselessness, abuse, and instability disproportionately work in commercial sex and endure sex trafficking. Commercial sex then compounds inequalities and violence. 

Yet policies and culture normalizing commercial sex misconceptions drive exploitation cycles and violence. 

Countries with full decriminalization—which legalizes both sex selling and buying—experience deteriorating prostitution conditions, trafficking inflows, normalized gender-based violence, and system inequalities. It is telling up to 90 percent of workers report a desire to escape, while U.S. male buyers constitute the strongest legalization supporters.[2]

Pennsylvania underutilizes deterrence practices for dismantling exploitation systems. 

Roughly 25 percent of active sex buyers account for 75 percent of all transactions. Though fueling the lucrative commercial sex market, these “high-frequency” buyers, when threatened with arrest, report greater likelihood of behavior change.[2]. Despite this, many jurisdictions lack adequate practices to prevent problematic sexual behavior and deter frequency buying.[1] 

Instead of protecting victims, the legal system creates barriers to prosecution and recovery. 

Nearly 75 percent of victims never report their trafficking and undertrained front line workers frequently overlook exploitation. Adding to this detection and prosecution difficulty, law enforcement and prosecutors may threaten to charge or withhold services from victims who don’t testify.[8] 

The result: many traffickers escape charges and victims remain unknown and unsupported. Most victims report incurring criminal records as a result of their trafficking—impeding employment, housing, financial, and social opportunities.[3] 

State law does narrowly grant “affirmative defense,” which offers protection against prosecution of trafficking-caused charges. However, it covers only prostitution charges and overlooks various trafficking-induced crimes.  

Pennsylvania further allows victims to petition the court to “vacate” certain crimes from their criminal records. Similar to affirmative defense, vacatur narrowly applies to just six crimes. Due to long and costly processes, over 75 percent of surveyed victims were unable to vacate their convictions.[3]

The Survivor Model prioritizes prevention and restoration.

The Survivor Model offers a robust policy framework. It shifts law enforcement resources from arresting prostituted persons toward adjudicating sex buyers and offers robust prevention, intervention, and support strategies to rectify inequities.

• Protecting victims from criminalization.[3] 

  • Enhancing affirmative defense to include all criminal charges—regardless of trafficker conviction—better protects victims from unjust criminalization. Rebuttable eligibility for more severe crimes ensures fair justice. 

  • Expanding vacatur eligible crimes and streamlining a fair court process can promote victim justice through post-conviction relief. Policymakers can further streamline record relief by eliminating prosecutorial petition vetoes and court filing fees, appointing indigent counsel, and ensuring fair evidentiary standards. 

• Enhancing exploiter accountability through demand reduction strategies and buyer prosecution.[2] 

  • Strengthening prostitution-related charges on sex buyers can bolster Act 41 of 2026 and constrain sex trafficking. Specifically penalizing repeated and sustained sex buying and trafficking matches sanction severity with offence gravity.

  • Enacting additional liability and civil injunction mechanisms on businesses that enable prostitution can further shift penalties from victims to exploiters.

  • Developing public health demand reduction strategies can intercept abuse cycles. This includes educational initiatives that counter harmful narratives and normalization, bystander intervention trainings, and targeted programming equipping high-frequency buyers to alter their behavior.

• Investing in comprehensive support services and exit strategies.[2] 

  • Increasing victim housing, healthcare, education, employment, and programming disrupts the structural inequalities and violence perpetuating sexual exploitation. 

  • A sustainable anti-trafficking infrastructure requires adequate dedicated funding for system coordination, victim advocates, front line worker training, and restitution eligibility.

Pennsylvania can lead the nation by aligning its anti-human trafficking infrastructure with strategies proven to reduce trafficking in the commercial sex industry and enhance safety. 

Read our policy backgrounder for more information.

Sources

[1] “Hotline Statistics,” National Human Trafficking Hotline, “2025 Annual Report,” Villanova Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation (June 2025).  

[2] “Racial & Gender Disparities in the Sex Trade,” Rights4Girls (August 2016),; Cho, Seo-Young, Dreher, Axel, and Eric Neumayer, “Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?” World Development (2013,;  “Why Sex Buyers Must be Stopped and How to Do It,” National Center on Sexual Exploitation (May 2022); “Who is the Most Vulnerable to Human Trafficking?” U.S. Department of Justice (April 2024); Farley, Melissa, et al., “Prostitution and Trafficking in Nine Countries: An Update on Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” Journal of Trauma Practice (2003);  “Who Buys Sex? Understanding and Disrupting Illicit Market Demand,” Demand Abolition (November 2018); Farley, Melissa and Jacqueline M. Golding, “Arrest Histories of Men Who Buy Sex,” Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice (Spring 2019).

[3] “In Harm’s Way: How Systems Fail Human Trafficking Survivors,” Polaris (January 2023); “National Survivor Network Members Survey: Impact of Criminal Arrest and Detention on Survivors of Human Trafficking,” National Survivor Network (December 2016); “2025 Annual Report,”  The Villanova Law Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation (June 2025); “A Legal Guide for Vacatur Motions in Pennsylvania,” The Villanova Law Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation (January 2024);  “Criminal Record Relief for Trafficking Survivors,” Polaris Institute (2023); “Background Checking: Conducting Criminal Background Checks,” Society for Human Resource Management (2010).