Welcome back! This is the third installment in our month-long series highlighting the panel presentations from this year’s symposium Combatting Commercial Sexual Exploitation through Law and Policy. The symposium was held on June 7, 2022, at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law.
In this week’s installment, we cover the third panel, “Solving Collateral Legal Consequences.” Our panel included: Alicia Anguiano, Immigration Attorney at Justice at Work, Nadeem Bezar, Partner at Kline & Specter, Dr. Marian Hatcher, Co-Founder at Alliance of Leadership & Innovation for Victims of Exploitation, and Nicholas Moore, a Supervising Attorney at Free to Thrive. Moderator: Rachel Foster, Founding Co-Chair of World Without Exploitation served as the moderator for the panel.
Dr. Marian Hatcher began the panel and her presentation by sharing the poignant quote from Ruth Bader Ginsberg, “I’m a very strong believer in listening and learning from others.” Dr. Hatcher explained how this quote relates to anti-trafficking efforts and emphasized the need for to listen to survivors. She then illustrated the power that listening to survivors has by sharing the history of the Debt Bondage Repair Act. The Debt Bondage Repair Act removes economic barriers for survivors by ensuring that credit histories are unaffected by debt that is a result of trafficking, increasing survivor access to economic success. Dr. Hatcher provided technical assistance and testified as a subject matter expert in the creation of this legislation. Furthermore, Dr. Hatcher found herself saddled with debt that was incurred by her trafficker. Her experiences inspired this bill and showed lawmakers that the impact of trafficking does not end when exiting the life. Holding traffickers accountable is only the beginning of the healing process. Financial issues play a huge part in that journey, and there must be avenues for credit relief because traffickers regularly destroy survivors credit histories. Financial healing for survivors is integral to building an empowered life, and the Debt Bondage Repair Act is an important step forward in remedying this form of injustice.
The second panelist to present was Nicholas Moore. His legal practice is primarily focused in family court, handling issues related to child custody. He specifically interacts with the collateral legal consequences of trafficking, involving survivors who have children with their trafficker, abuser, or sex buyer. The trauma of this dynamic is intensified by the family court policies that prioritize co-parenting efforts. Survivors are penalized for not wanting to interact with people who have victimized them. Even when this is not the case, the trauma they have suffered due to their victimization can permeate their life, leaving them more vulnerable to a variety of challenges within the family court process. One of the challenges Mr. Moore faces is trying to ensure survivors feel heard throughout this process. He knows that for many survivors, his cis-male identity is a challenge. He works to mitigate this response in his clients by using a trauma informed approach. It is made harder by the amount of time child custody cases go on for, and how slowly legal proceedings progress. Mr. Moore emphasized that one thing everyone can and should do for survivors of sex trafficking is to encourage others to abstain from engaging in commercial sex.
Alicia Anguiano was the third panel speaker. She discussed the barriers to justice for immigrant survivors, including fear of immigration enforcement, geographical issues, language access and cultural differences. Ms. Anguiano explained T visas and U visas: the process, outcomes, and barriers to both types of visas. In addition to other requirements, one must be a victim of a severe form of trafficking in persons to be eligible for a T Visa, physically present in the United States due to the trafficking, and suffer extreme hardship involving severe and unusual harm upon removal from the United States. There are many benefits to a T Visa, including a path to lawful permanent residence after three years and access to public benefits. A U Visa is similar, providing immigration relief to victims of certain crimes including human trafficking. Both require an arduous application process and are challenging to receive with long waiting times. Immigration concerns are an enormously difficult collateral legal consequence for survivors to navigate.
The fourth panelist, Nadeem Bezar, gave a dynamic presentation that included powerful video footage from witnesses in a civil deposition. His firm Kline & Specter believes that civil litigation can be a major tool for reform, and that large fines cause people to change their actions. He explained the process of filing a suit for this purpose, including frustrations when dealing with perpetrators seeking to avoid accountability. He discussed how holding traffickers and third-party facilitators, such as hotels, civilly liable for their conduct can be a source of empowerment for survivors. Specifically, this recognition can help survivors process the prior wrongs against them. He seeks to empower his clients and ensure that traffickers and those that enable trafficking are no longer able to continue their operations.
We are grateful to these panelists and the Symposium attendees for coming together to discuss some of the less-understood, yet incredibly significant, challenges that victims and survivors of commercial sexual exploitation face.
Thank you again to this incredible panel:
- Alicia Anguiano, Immigration Attorney, Justice at Work
- Nadeem Bezar, Partner, Kline & Specter
- Marian Hatcher, Co-Founder, Alliance of Leadership & Innovation for Victims of Exploitation
- Nicholas Moore, Supervising Attorney, Free to Thrive
- Moderator: Rachel Foster, Founding Co-Chair, World Without Exploitation
To learn more about the collateral legal consequences survivors face, see the CSE Institute’s 2022 Annual Report and watch the panel in full at the link below.
Watch Panel 3: Solving Collateral Legal Consequences here.
All views expressed herein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.