Robin Bolz, a survivor of human trafficking, testifies in a Michigan House Judiciary Committee meeting in Lansing, Michigan on Nov. 13, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)
Too often, survivors of sex trafficking are branded with names like “prostitute,” reinforcing the power of abusers and taking away the voices of those who were abused, Robin Bolz, a survivor of human trafficking, told Michigan lawmakers Wednesday.
Members of the Michigan House Judiciary Committee examined bills that would alter legal language in Michigan that labels trafficking victims as “prostitutes” and considered bills that would allow survivors legal protections if they committed criminal acts while being trafficked.
It was like drowning, Bolz recalled, years of sexual abuse starting at age 8 at the hands of her father chipped away at her sense of self, further deepening the control her traffickers held over her. Eventually, as is the case with many who have been sex trafficked, Bolz said she began to feel like her perpetrators were her “breath of air,” making it hard to seek out freedom.
Michigan leaders discuss efforts to help victims of human trafficking
Bolz said she is getting the chance to testify in support of bills that could have helped her heal and seek justice on what would have been her father’s birthday.
“No one saved me, but I had to claw my way to this point through God’s grace and mercy,” Bolz said. “I will spend every last breath advocating for survivors so that they feel seen, heard and valued.”
There are a lot of misconceptions about trafficking and the stigma of blame for victims compounds on an already devastating system of abuse that is prevalent all over Michigan, Assistant Attorney General and Michigan Human Trafficking Commission Chair Melissa Palepu said.
Michigan is one of the top ten states for confirmed human trafficking cases, Palepu has said in the last year and she lamented that Shared Hope, a group that grades the policies of each state related to youth sex trafficking, ranks Michigan as one of the worst states in the nation at addressing sex trafficking.
Traffickers exert total control over victims and victims are often charged with prostitution offenses or are coerced to commit other crimes, including drug and theft-related crimes, Palepu remarked. In order to empower those who have been trafficked to hold their perpetrators to account in court and be able to rebuild their own lives, the state as a whole needs to reframe how it talks about trafficking and provide legal protections for those coming forward.
Lawmakers heard testimony Wednesday on more than 20 bills that would reframe policies on human trafficking.
House Bills 5836 and 5838, would expand Michigan’s expungement rules to allow for survivors of human trafficking to have criminal convictions set aside if those convictions were a direct result of them being a victim of human trafficking. There are existing exemptions for offenses related to prostitution, but the bills expand expungements to all qualifying criminal acts committed while being trafficked.
Moving forward, Palepu said other bills being presented will provide survivors of human trafficking a chance at better interaction in the legal system. Namely HB 5837 would specify that survivors have an affirmative defense against prosecution for criminal conduct performed as a result of being actively trafficked.
This isn’t an entirely new concept to Michigan courts, Palepu reasoned, as affirmative defenses such as self defense, entrapment and insanity already exist. The extension to trafficking victims would recognize the depth of control traffickers exert while providing avenues for survivors to reach out to authorities for help.
“Survivors have little to no control over their actions while they are being trafficked, and often they are forced to commit other criminal acts and would suffer consequences for their failure to commit such acts,” Palepu said.
Law enforcement and local prosecutors want to help trafficking victims, but current criminal codes box in what they can do within the justice system, Brian Martin, an Investigator at Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Right now if a victim of human trafficking takes the stand against their perpetrator, they’re open to prosecution for their own criminal acts performed while being trafficked, Cindy Brown, section leader of the Oakland County Human Trafficking Unit said.
Brown said she’s been adjusting witness immunity under the prostitution chapter of the Criminal Code that has existed since 1999 to try and protect victims of trafficking, but the rules are ill-fitting and fail to represent the difference between prostitution and human trafficking.
“It made no sense to me, because human trafficking, by definition, is a crime that has force, fraud or coercion. Prostitution doesn’t,” Brown said.
SB 517 would provide immunity protections for survivors of human trafficking who take the stand against perpetrators, even if they testify to having performed criminal activity.
“When I meet with the human trafficking victim, that’s their first concern. ‘Am I going to be arrested? Am I being charged? Am I going to be in trouble for coming to talk to you today?’ And this would allow us to say, ‘no.’”
Martin testified that as a member of law enforcement he particularly appreciates the thought that went into Senate Bill 515, which would allow hearsay exceptions to allow for statements from human trafficking victims to law enforcement officials to be used in court, without the victim having to testify.
One case of human trafficking he was assigned to, Martin said, upset him so much that he started working with Oakland county partners on how some of the court rules on human trafficking could be changed.
“The fact that I had to hold these victims of human trafficking, knowing the situation that they were rescued from, but we had to hold them in custody and then take them while they were still sick, and they should have been in the hospital and put them on the stand in front of their trafficker in order for us to get those statements in was heartbreaking,” Martin said.
One of the victims involved in the case had told law enforcement that they had a domestic relationship with the trafficker, Martin said, so that victim was permitted to have their statements read in court without them having to be present under existing hearsay exceptions for domestic violence victims.
But human trafficking and domestic violence are not so dissimilar, Palepu noted in support of SB 515.
“There is such a connection between human trafficking and domestic violence, the relationships are so similar between the abuser and the survivor or the victim, that it makes complete sense to allow for that hearsay exception that’s already allowed for domestic violence to be allowed for human trafficking victims, as well,” Palepu said.
Victims should be receiving rehabilitative services and extensive medical attention, not being forced to take the witness stand within two weeks of their rescue, Martin said, calling the changes the bills outline “game-changing.”
The very people who are victimized by traffickers have the most power to take them down, human trafficking survivor Irene Faziani told lawmakers.
House Bill 5840 would expand existing allowances for expert testimony in criminal proceedings involving human trafficking to allow those with “specialized knowledge” on human trafficking to offer insight to a jury. Faziani, who now works at the safe house that helped her recover from her abuse, said survivors like her are experts.
“We’re not law enforcement or any of that, but we’ve actually lived through it,” Faziani said. “We know exactly what’s going on.”
Juries can have a hard time understanding why survivors of human trafficking do what they do or why they didn’t leave when a juror thinks they ought to have, Palepu said. By expanding the umbrella of eligible expert witnesses, prosecutors can utilize a more fitting approach to making courts understand the stigmatized issue of human trafficking.
The bulk of the bills the Michigan House Judiciary Committee heard about Wednesday amend the terminology in Michigan’s existing laws where a human trafficking victim would be navigating rules pertaining to prostitution, which label them prostitutes.
House Bills 5841 through 5854 and House Bill 5864 change the language of prostitution to “commercial sex.”
That may not seem like a big change, Palepu said, but it can be the difference between someone going after their perpetrator or not.
“Because the word prostitute and prostitution [have] such a stigma in our society, victims and survivors of human trafficking are often referred to as prostitutes, and they’re demeaned as such,” Palepu said. “Changing the language to commercial sex gets rid of that stigma so that they can actually when we go through a criminal system. We’re not saying prostitution. … We’re not calling them ‘prostitutes.’ Defense attorneys aren’t calling them ‘prostitutes.’ We’re talking about people who have engaged in commercial sex because they were forced to engage in commercial sex. It just allows for that stigma to be taken away and to let them go through the criminal system.”
Because of trafficking, Bolz said she was robbed of an education that exceeded a seventh grade level. And as she’s fought to reclaim her life, now earning a 4.0 grade point average as a senior at Western Michigan University, she said she’s not accepting the label Michigan courts are offering.
“This shift in language is not just about vocabulary. It is about seeing survivors for who they are, victims of abuse who deserve understanding and compassion. The words we choose matter. When our legal system uses terms like prostitution, it erases the reality of trafficking, of people taken, manipulated and trapped without choice,” Bolz said, “By changing this language, we recognize that survivors are not criminals, nor are they sex workers. Survivors have endured sex slavery, a term that reflects the lack of control and exploitation that they suffer, and if we want to offer a path to healing, we must first remove the language that keeps them chained to their trauma.”
The packed committee room clapped for Bolz call to action and all of the bills passed the committee unanimously as bipartisan efforts.
As the Michigan Legislature approaches its last days of the 2023-24 session and leadership of the state House will transfer from Democrats to Republicans in January, committee Chair Kelly Breen (D-Novi) said that the bills represent the best of government, when party lines don’t bind against helping those most in need.
“I particularly want to thank my colleagues on the right and across the aisle, as it is a good thing when we can together, across the entire political spectrum, look at an issue squarely, denounce it, agree to work together, in this case… to end this practice, hunt down the predators, put them away, and help survivors reclaim their lives,” Breen said. “So thank you to my colleagues, both to my left and to my right, for your cooperation in addressing this issue.”
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