Post by: Wendy Wrobel
My name is Wendy Wrobel, I am a law clerk for the Center for Global Justice here at Regent University school of law. Last semester I was blessed to assist in research pertaining to a statutory labor trafficking research project with Shared Hope International.
Shared Hope International “exists to prevent sex trafficking and restore and bring justice to women and children who have been victimized through sex trafficking. [Shared Hope] is part of a worldwide effort to prevent and eradicate sex trafficking and slavery.” Beyond that, Shared Hope stands to eradicate human trafficking as a whole. Shared Hope creates report cards for each State based on their statutes and policies, and they support protection for victims. Within these report cards Shared Hope also includes recommendations for policy change.
My part of the project has been to analyze each State’s restitution policies for labor trafficking juvenile victims, and to compare those policies to similar policies for sex trafficking juvenile victims. This research will assist Shared Hope in creating “report cards” for each State on their approach to combatting human trafficking.
About half of States have a mandatory restitution policy for victims in general. Some even have restitution policies for human trafficking victims explicitly. However, there are many with no mandatory restitution policies at all. The most common recovery is economic loss or cost of labor/wages through a civil suit. Shared Hope’s concern is making sure human trafficking victims have access to restitution for the crimes committed against them; beyond that, ensuring labor trafficking victims have access to the same restitution as sex trafficking victims, and ensuring minors have the same access to restitution as adults.
Shared Hope consistently and persistently works for protection and restitution for trafficking victims. They continue to be the leading force in policy change that benefits victims of human trafficking across America.
This post was written by a Center for Global Justice Student Staff member. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect those of Regent University, Regent Law School, or the Center for Global Justice.