Victim-focused human trafficking bills back before Michigan Legislature after dying in lame duck

Originally published by Michigan Advance, a nonprofit news organization.

A key legislator behind an effort to overhaul Michigan’s human trafficking laws said she is hopeful — but not confident — that the Republican House majority will move reintroduced versions of the bills after they floundered during a previous chaotic lame duck session.

Still, state Rep. Kelly Breen (D-Novi) said the package was important enough to try again, considering the many obstacles victims of human trafficking face when they try to restart their lives after years or sometimes decades of abuse.

Five bills in the package were before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, a meeting that included testimony from lawmakers, prosecutors and judges, victims of human trafficking and organizations that offer resources to help them escape.

The bills include House Bill 5009, House Bill 5010, House Bill 5011, House Bill 5012 and House Bill 5013. A few focus on expanding the list of criminal convictions survivors would be able to expunge or have a judge set aside if they were committed while being a victim of human trafficking, especially if they were coerced into committing those crimes out of fear of physical harm, death, or the safety of their loved ones.

Those who testified before the committee said survivors and active victims of sex trafficking are often forced into additional criminal activity at the order of their traffickers. Convictions follow survivors well after they are able to escape and move on, making career opportunities or basic needs, like housing, hard to find. Helping survivors regain their dignity and agency could be the difference between a survivor flourishing in a life after trafficking, or being sucked back into captivity out of desperation.

Breen sponsored one of the expungement bills. She said the lack of long-term resources and support often create an increased risk of re-exploitation. Historically, laws prohibiting prostitution were designed to both punish the person seeking the service and the person who was providing it. That has led to human trafficking victims, including children, to be prosecuted for prostitution offenses despite the fact that they were forced to commit these non-consensual acts.

“These are the types of people that we are trying to help, and I think it’s also important to note that human trafficking is the second largest and the fastest growing criminal enterprise next to drug trafficking,” Breen said.

That wasn’t just sex trafficking, either, lawmakers said, noting that labor trafficking was also a scourge that the overall package was trying to address.

State Rep. Sarah Lightner (R-Springport), the committee’s chair, said that bills appeared to make survivors and victims of human trafficking exempt from the state’s caps on the types of crimes that can be expunged or set aside. That includes some assaultive crimes that the Legislature considered but did not include when it allowed clean slate laws with pathways to expungement.

Breen said there has been some talk about amending the bills before Lightner’s committee, but she also said that would now fall under the purview of judicial discretion.

State Rep. Carol Glanville (D-Walker) said that it was difficult to describe to someone who was not a victim or a survivor the set of circumstances that might lead a person to commit 50 or 100 crimes under duress.

Leslie King, a survivor of sex-trafficking who now runs Sacred Beginnings, one of the largest peer-mentor programs for survivors in the state, said the barriers facing victims and survivors were too tall to climb for many of those who have escaped and are trying to live normal lives.

“We fight hard daily just to stay clean. Just to become productive. Can’t get jobs because of our backgrounds and history,” King said. “We can’t keep reliving this pain, while traffickers go free. While we’re not free. We still have nightmares, but we still push through.”

King said these bills will help survivors be free.

The committee did not act on the bills and will likely have more opportunities for testimony, on these bills and others in the package. Following the committee, Breen told Michigan Advance that she hoped the GOP majority under House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) will support what they are doing — not just for the sake of survivors and victims still struggling — but for those who have made time to give testimony and lay their trauma bare before lawmakers who have yet to offer them relief.

“I believe the technical issues with the bills can be worked out. Ultimately, it’s going to depend on Speaker Hall, and I pray he listens to the testimony and will do the right thing,” Breen said. “I know we all want the same things, we just disagree on how to get there. … It is not easy to air these horrid details of their lives out in front of a room full of strangers on live television. It’s not fair to make them keep coming back, time and again, while the people who should be behind bars are still walking free.”