AEquitas - Champions for Justice

Despite increased public awareness of human trafficking and enhanced anti-trafficking efforts over the last two decades, research, experiences of AEquitas’ staff providing training and technical assistance (TTA), and trafficking survivors tell us that prosecution and law enforcement efforts have failed in three key ways: (1) victims and survivors of both labor trafficking and sex trafficking continue to be criminalized, (2) prosecution practices remain reactive and often coercive, and need to improve in order to be truly survivor-centered and trauma-informed; and (3) labor trafficking investigations and prosecutions in particular have lagged in proportion to known numbers of survivors.

Promising practices recognize that enhanced multidisciplinary teams are critical to an effective and comprehensive HT response; however, prosecutors have unique influence because they have the ultimate responsibility to put the law on the books into action. As the final “gatekeepers” to the system, prosecutors have the discretion to charge a case—which advances it, and future cases like it—or decline a case, effectively barricading similar cases from the system. Providing prosecutors with meaningful and consistent specialized support, access to rigorous training, better technologies, collaborative partners, and a network of world- class experts can help break down siloes and elevate their practice.

With funds from the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), AEquitas will provide customized TTA to local, state, tribal, and regional prosecutors' offices across the United States; develop and provide prosecutors with the resources needed to lead efforts to eradicate trafficking in their jurisdictions; create a tool to enhance collaboration between local prosecutors and state Attorneys General; develop recommendations to minimize the reliance on undercover operations; promote promising practices to identify and investigate trafficking in targeted, innovative, and trauma informed ways; and collaborate with other leaders in the field to enhance the multidisciplinary response to human trafficking.