"Understanding Human Trafficking" Series

are honored to present

"Understanding Human Trafficking:

Common-Sense Legal Reforms"

Series Overview

Please join the Connecticut Bar Foundation, Connecticut Bar Association’s Committee on Human Trafficking, and Quinnipiac’s Human Trafficking Prevention Project for our series, “Understanding Human Trafficking.”  The series explores the interactions between trafficking victims and the legal system—starting with the criminal justice system—and delves into ongoing debates at the state and federal level about what reforms are needed to assist victims in escaping trafficking, in rebuilding their lives after they have escaped, and in preventing trafficking in the first instance.

Using force, fraud, and coercion, traffickers compel their victims to commit a range of illegal acts and then threaten to expose them to criminal prosecution. Victims are regularly arrested and prosecuted for a range of crimes resulting from their trafficking. Even years after they escape their traffickers, their criminal histories continue to haunt them, limiting access to employment, housing, education, and other areas of civic life. 

 

UPCOMING EVENTS
 

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PAST EVENTS

Human Trafficking Awareness Week

February 19-23, 2024

 

Broadening the Scope: A Conversation with Males Impacted by Sex Trafficking

Thursday, February 22nd, 2024, 6:00pm ­– 8:00pm

Please join the Quinnipiac University School of Law Human Trafficking Prevention Project—along with the Connecticut Bar Association and Connecticut Bar Foundation—for our first panel of Awareness Week 2024: “Broadening the Scope: A Conversation with Males Impacted by Sex Trafficking.”

While the anti-sex trafficking movement has brought awareness to female survivors of trafficking, the sex and labor trafficking of males is often overlooked.  According to experts, the underreporting of men and boys is rampant.  Stigma and shame, coupled with gender-specific awareness efforts, programs, and services that use non-inclusive language and imagery, deter males from disclosing grooming, sexual exploitation, and trauma in general.

Join us for a conversation with two experts who draw on their own lived experiences in order to illuminate some of the unique challenges faced by men and boys who have been sex and labor trafficked.  Grounding the discussion in their lived experiences, both men will highlight topics such as prevalence; stereotypes and myths; vulnerabilities and intersectionality; “a day in the life;” why trafficked persons stay and how they get out; and solutions, including recovery, services, and reform.

In order to ensure that the panelists’ personal stories remain confidential, the panel discussion will not be recorded and zoom attendance will not be an option.  Further, all attendees will be asked to sign a confidentiality agreement, agreeing to not disclose any identifying information about the panelists, including their names and any other identifying details.

This is a free event. Please submit anonymous questions for the panel here, and register using the button above.

Attorneys admitted in Connecticut may claim up to two (2) CLE hours for attending this event.

 

Our inspiring and expert panelists include:

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Moderator

Resource Materials

Protecting Immigrant Children: Their Journeys Before & After They Reach the U.S. 

Friday, February 23, 2024, 12:00pm – 2:00pm

Please join the Quinnipiac University School of Law Human Trafficking Prevention Project—along with the Connecticut Bar Association and the Connecticut Bar Foundation—for our second panel of Awareness Week 2024: “Protecting Immigrant Children: Their Journeys Before and After They Reach the U.S.” 

In recent years, the U.S. has seen an influx of unaccompanied children from Central America fleeing violence and extreme poverty in their home countries.  For many Americans, it is difficult to understand what circumstances cause a child to leave their home and family behind to journey on their own to a foreign country.  This panel seeks to answer this and other questions by providing an in-depth look into the flight of these children away from their countries of origin and their journeys into the U.S.

The panel begins by examining the cultural context and conditions of the three Northern Triangle countries—and Guatemala in particular—from which so many children are fleeing.  Next, the panel will focus on migrant children’s journey to the U.S. and how they are processed and then resettled after they cross into the U.S.  Finally, the panelists will come full circle by describing their struggles to regularize their immigration status in this country while providing insight on pathways for these kids to immigrate legally before they even leave home.

This is a free event. Please submit anonymous questions for the panel here, and register using the button above.

Attorneys admitted in Connecticut may claim up to two (2) CLE hours for attending this event.

 

Our panel features attorneys and advocates who work with Central American migrant children and their families:

Panelists

Moderator

Resource Materials

GUATEMALA & NORTHERN TRIANGLE

THE U.S. BORDER

MIGRANT CHILDREN & TRAFFICKING IN THE U.S.

Trauma-Informed Advocacy: Building Resilience For Clients and Service Providers

Thursday, March 30, 2023, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time)

Today, anyone working with clients—including lawyers, paralegals, interpreters, social workers, and other service providers—should be trained in trauma-informed advocacy.  Studies suggest that most adults in the U.S. have experienced a traumatic event at least once.  Lawyers and other advocates who work with clients who have histories involving significant trauma—including trafficked persons, asylum seekers, domestic violence victims, unaccompanied minors arriving at our borders, etc.—struggle daily to balance the need to respond empathetically to clients’ experiences while avoiding vicarious trauma. 

As part of our Understanding Human Trafficking series, this training takes a deep dive into how individuals experience trauma and how advocates can use a trauma-informed approach when working with clients.  Keighly Rector, Supervising Attorney of the Pro Bono Project Catholic Charities Community Services of the Archdiocese of New York, will lead this training, Trauma-Informed Advocacy: Building Resilience For Clients and Service Providers. 

The training will provide an overview of trauma and the essential elements of trauma-informed care, including work-related stress stemming from exposure to trauma, such as burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and vicarious trauma.  The training will also build on shared language around trauma and the physiology of traumatic responses to develop an understanding of how trauma manifests itself in legal cases, how attorneys and legal advocates can incorporate trauma-informed care into their practice, and why this leads to more effective advocacy.

Attorneys admitted in Connecticut may claim up to two CT CLE hours for attending this event.

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Presenter

Resource Materials

Awareness Week at Quinnipiac Law
(Feb. 7-10 & 16, 2023)

Please scroll down for panel registration links

 

 

 

Sexual Assault on Campus & Title IX: Balancing the Interests of the Victim and the Accused

Wednesday, February 8, 2023, 6:00pm ­– 8:00pm (Eastern Standard Time)

 

Please join the Quinnipiac University School of Law Human Trafficking Prevention Project—along with the Connecticut Bar Association and Connecticut Bar Foundation—for our first panel of Awareness Week 2023: “Sexual Assault on Campus & Title IX: Balancing the Interests of the Victim and the Accused.”

Passed in 1972, Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in higher education; more specifically, Title IX protects students from sexual assault and sexual harassment.  Over the past three presidential administrations (i.e. Obama, Trump, and Biden), Title IX regulations and enforcement have seesawed, and today Title IX has become the focus of fierce debates as to how to protect students from sexual violence while providing due process protections for those who have been accused.

To explore these debates, and to identify areas of possible consensus, we have invited three experts—each working within the Title IX framework but from distinct vantage points—to share their perspectives and experiences.  The panel will begin by exploring the basics of how Title IX works: the actors, the process and procedures, and concepts like “affirmative consent” & “restorative justice.”  Panelists will then be asked to identify areas where the Title IX framework is working effectively and also to highlight areas ripe for reform.

Attorneys admitted in Connecticut may claim up to two CT CLE hours for attending this event.

PANELISTS

MODERATORS

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Resource Materials

Children Crossing Borders: Migrant Children’s Vulnerability to Trafficking

Thursday, February 16, 2023, 6:00pm ­– 8:00pm (Eastern Standard Time)

Please join the Quinnipiac University School of Law Human Trafficking Prevention Project—along with the Connecticut Bar Association and the Connecticut Bar Foundation—for our second panel of Awareness Week 2023: “Children Crossing Borders: Migrant Children’s Vulnerability to Trafficking.” 

With images of the separation of migrant kids seemingly in our rearview mirror, many Americans are no longer focused on the children who continue to arrive at our border.  We know little about who they are, why they come, what they encounter as they head north, how they are “processed” when they arrive, and the struggles they face as they are resettled in cities and towns across the United States.

To examine the trafficking risks faced by Central America migrants, this panel follows these children on their journey to the U.S.—first, exploring the reasons why they leave their families and their homes and the dangers they face as they move north; next, focusing on their experiences at the border as the U.S. government attempts to process them in a child-appropriate manner; and, finally, highlighting their struggles to resettle here in Connecticut, adjust to American life, and regularize their immigration status in this country.  Our panel features attorneys and scholars who have spent their careers working with Central American migrants.

Attorneys admitted in Connecticut may claim up to two (2) CLE hours for attending this event.

Panelists

Moderator

Presenter

Resource Materials

Human Trafficking Prevention Project: Introduction to Human Trafficking Training

January 28, 2022, 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM (Eastern Daylight Time)

The Human Trafficking Prevention Project (HTPP) is a student-run organization at Quinnipiac University School of Law. The organization began in 2017 when a small group of students created an Introduction to Human Trafficking Training and presented it to hotels across the state of Connecticut. HTPP has since expanded its reach and now trains a variety of audiences including healthcare workers, lawyers, social workers, educators, and the general public. In addition to its training efforts, HTPP also collaborates with the Connecticut Bar Association, the Connecticut Bar Foundation, and leading anti-trafficking organizations to sponsor panels on topics relating to human trafficking and to advocate for survivor-friendly legislation.

HTPP's Introduction to Human Trafficking training seeks to educate audiences about various aspects of human trafficking, including how it is defined under state and federal law, who can be targeted, and how to identify human trafficking and report human trafficking. It is intended for all audiences.

PRESENTERS

For more information about Human Trafficking Awareness Week 2022, please click here.

Labor Trafficking at Home: Involuntary Domestic Servitude in the U.S.

Wednesday, January 26, 2022, 6:00pm ­– 8:00pm (Eastern Daylight Time)

The Quinnipiac University School of Law Human Trafficking Prevention Project—along with the Connecticut Bar Foundation and the Connecticut Bar Association—presented the second panel of Awareness Week 2022: “Labor Trafficking at Home: Involuntary Domestic Servitude in the U.S.”

When Americans think about human trafficking, we tend to focus on sex trafficking. And yet, experts estimate that labor trafficked persons (persons subject to forced labor) account for roughly two-thirds of all trafficked persons worldwide. Trafficking experts point to involuntary domestic servitude—which can affect live-in nannies, home health aides or personal care aides, maids, etc.—as the predominant form of labor trafficking in the U.S. and in Connecticut in particular.

Because it involves work in a private residence, involuntary domestic servitude can be especially difficulty to detect and thus presents unique vulnerabilities for victims. Domestic workers, especially women, face various forms of abuse, harassment, and exploitation, including sexual and gender-based violence. Victims are often underpaid—if they are paid at all—and many start their first day of work already facing enormous debt (known as debt bondage); others encounter employers who insist on confiscating their passports; and all find themselves isolated and often alone in the residences where they work, without freedom of movement or ability to leave their employment. Our patchwork of federal and state laws fails to protect most domestic workers, who do not receive basic protections extended to other workers—including a single day off per week.

To explore various dimensions of this pressing issue, our panel included four inspiring women with lived experience and/or legal expertise in connection with involuntary domestic servitude.

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MODERATOR

PANELISTS

Resource Materials

Finding Common Ground: Debates Around Sex Trade Reform, Decriminalizing Prostitution, and the Fight Against Trafficking

JANUARY 24, 2022, 6:00 PM TO 8:00 PM (EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME)

The Quinnipiac University School of Law Human Trafficking Prevention Project—along with the Connecticut Bar Association and Connecticut Bar Foundation—presented this first panel of Human Trafficking Awareness Week 2022: “Finding Common Ground: Debates Around Sex Trade Reform, Decriminalizing Prostitution, and the Fight Against Trafficking.”

Anti-human trafficking experts remain deeply divided on questions of legalizing or decriminalizing prostitution, sex trade reform, and how to draw the line between voluntary sex work, exploitation, and trafficking.  There is general agreement among advocates that the criminalization of the sex trade—the current model in the United States—is not working.  However, experts disagree over how best to reduce violence and other harms associated with the sex trade, while protecting trafficked persons and others trapped in the industry.  Extrapolating from models in other countries—such as New Zealand, the Netherlands, and various Nordic countries—advocates can be theoretically divided into the following camps: legalization, full decriminalization, partial decriminalization, and outright criminalization.  

To explore these debates, we invited three experts on anti-trafficking and sex trade reforms—first, to explain and dissect the four models; second, to explore their contrasting views based on their expertise as advocates working with trafficked individuals or individuals in the sex trade, as well as their own lived experiences; and, finally, to identify areas of common ground and opportunities for meaningful reform, both in our state and nationally.

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Hidden in Plain Sight: The Faces of Labor Trafficking in Connecticut

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021, 12:00 PM TO 2:00 PM (EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME)

The Connecticut Bar Foundation, Connecticut Bar Association’s Committee on Human Trafficking, and Quinnipiac’s Human Trafficking Prevention Project presented the fourth panel in our series, “Understanding Human Trafficking.”

When Americans think about human trafficking, they often focus on sex trafficking.  And yet, experts estimate that victims of labor trafficking—i.e. forced labor—account for roughly two-thirds of all trafficking victims worldwide.  Most Americans assume that labor trafficking happens mostly abroad, in Asia, Africa, or Latin America.  For this and other related reasons, labor trafficking is woefully under-reported and under-prosecuted in the U.S., and around the world.

To explore what forms labor trafficking takes in Connecticut and the region, we invited three legal advocates, each with a unique perspective on labor trafficking and the people trapped by it.  Drawing on their work with victims, and their expertise bringing legal cases on behalf of these individuals, our panelists shed light on what labor trafficking looks like in Connecticut and surrounding states—from the migrant farmworkers who pick our crops, to the domestic workers who maintain our households, from the unaccompanied children crossing the border, to the immigrant spouses trapped in abusive marriages, and the workers who have helped build our nation.  Panelists also discussed how our labor and immigration laws impact labor trafficking, and the fine line between labor exploitation and labor trafficking.

Our panel featured experts who work with survivors of various forms of labor trafficking, including:

MODERATOR

PRESENTER

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The Movement to End Child Marriage: Where Does Connecticut Stand?

April 23, 2021, 12:00 PM TO 2:00 PM (EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME)

Anti-trafficking advocates include “forced marriage” as a form of human trafficking. The International Labour Organization estimates that over 15 million people worldwide find themselves in forced marriages. Child marriage—which overwhelmingly involves girls—is a subset of forced marriage associated with the greatest risk for abuse.

But to what extent is child marriage a problem in the U.S. and, more specifically, in Connecticut? Between 2000 and 2015, over 200,000 minors were married in the U.S.  Starting in 2018, four states have enacted total bans on child marriage, notwithstanding opposition from those who have argued that such bans represent an unwarranted intrusion on the fundamental right to marry. In 2017, Connecticut enacted a partial ban, allowing minors between the ages of 16 and 18 to marry with judicial approval based on a petition by a parent or guardian. Proposals to enact a complete ban on child marriage in Connecticut have thus far failed.

Our panel—The Movement to End Child Marriage: Where Does Connecticut Stand?—features a range of experts:

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Resource Materials

Stories from the Underground: How Trafficking Survivors Experience the Criminal Justice System

FEBRUARY 19, 2021, 12:00 PM TO 2:00 PM (EASTERN STANDARD TIME)

The second panel in the series highlighted the stories of two trafficking survivors as they struggled to navigate the criminal justice system in their respective states.  The panel explored the obstacles that trafficking victims face as they interact with the criminal justice system, moving from arrest to prosecution and conviction, and then to criminal record relief, including applications for pardons and vacatur.

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Fighting Human Trafficking by Decriminalizing Victims: Expanding Connecticut's Vacatur Laws

JANUARY 8, 2021, 12:00 PM TO 2:00 PM (EASTERN STANDARD TIME)

The inaugural panel began the series with a look at how expanding vacatur laws -- allowing victims of human trafficking in Connecticut to apply to "vacate," or set-aside, their criminal convictions -- can help to decriminalize trafficking survivors and enable them to re-join their communities as full members.

This panel featured a range of experts: 

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