A 2018 study by the Urban Institute found that although the notion of “justice” in human trafficking cases has largely been viewed through the lens of the successful prosecution of traffickers, trafficking survivors themselves overwhelmingly lack faith in the U.S. criminal legal system. The study revealed that “justice” for survivors of trafficking was more closely tied to their ability to recover from their trafficking experience, rather than the punishment of their traffickers. Restorative and transformative justice, which focuses on the repair of individual and systemic harms rather than the punishment of individual lawbreakers, broadly appealed to trafficking survivors but has not been made readily available to them.
Please join the Human Trafficking Prevention Project on Wednesday, November 16th as we discuss access to restorative and transformative justice for survivors of violence and oppression. We will be joined by Jessica Peñaranda (she/her), Assistant Director of Intervention for Common Justice, a New York City-based organization which operates the first alternative-to-incarceration and victim-service program in the United States that focuses on violent felonies in the adult courts, as well as Justice Rivera (she/they), a consultant with Reframe Health & Justice, an independent consulting collective that supports organizations and movements in deepening their practices of care, compassion, and collaboration. Justice is also the author of the soon-to-be-released “Towards Bodily Autonomy: A Healing Justice Anthology Decolonizing Sex Work and Drug Use.”