The Human Trafficking Clinic at the Law School has been awarded a $500,000, three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to fund a partnership between the clinic and domestic-violence and sexual-assault services.
The award from the DOJ’s Legal Assistance for Victims Grant Program funds a partnership with the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence and the U-M Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center. Both partnerships are designed to improve services to victims of human trafficking in Michigan.
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“One thing we’ve been realizing more and more with our cases is how much overlap there is between the two. It doesn’t have to be that someone was either a victim of human trafficking or of domestic violence or sexual assault. It’s often both,” said Elizabeth Campbell, clinical assistant professor of law and the grant proposal’s main author.
“The gap in services and coordination between agencies serving victims of human trafficking and survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence or stalking means that clients can be revictimized as a result of being represented or served based on only a subset of their experiences. We have to resist the urge to silo these things.”
The project’s goals include:
• Expanding the holistic legal services that the clinic provides to the underrepresented population of people who are both victims of human trafficking and survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and/or stalking.
• Developing a formal collaboration between the Human Trafficking Clinic, Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, and the university’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center.
• Increasing awareness of and ability to represent sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking victims among Michigan lawyers.
• Training and supporting sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking agencies in serving this underrepresented population.
• Ensuring that eligible victims of human trafficking are made aware of and referred to sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking agencies.
• Ensuring client safety and confidentiality.
About 40 percent of clients represented by the clinic — which was launched in 2009 — have been survivors of sexual assault; 10 percent are survivors of domestic violence; and 14 percent are survivors of stalking.
Human trafficking occurs when a person is compelled to engage in labor, services or commercial sex. Traffickers exploit victims by the abuse of the legal process (such as threatening deportation, arrest, removal of children), by physical force, psychological coercion, financial coercion and fraudulent promises.
